[NKosmatos]

Just a small clarification, this post is discussing software rot [0] and not data rot [1]. I think that most of us associate bit rot with the loss of data in a storage medium, frequently associated with corruptions in files causing them to not open or appear in a different form. There are file systems like ZFS and Btrfs that can detect and recover bitrot. This is something more obvious in photos where a few bit flips will result in a distorted/discolored/corrupted photo being displayed.

The concept of software rot due to old hardware, dependencies, updates, connectivity, architecture/application changes is something different and has to do with the design of software and (as correctly stated) not with the ageing or fatigue of the software.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_rot [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_degradation