But it is way less work than it took to build the knowledgebase we have today. Imagine if we could give all our math literature to the Romans 2000 years ago in a translated form, do you really think it would have no effect? Calculus was invented just a few hundred years ago, it took humanity millennia to get where we are today.
We started from the assertion that if a software project loses all of its devs it will not be maintainable anymore by new hires.
Not only this is far from a general truth, we all maintained codebases we knew nothing about I guess, but it applies even less to mathematics, which is a language based on definitions built on few concepts rather than vague and buggy business requirements.
> We started from the assertion that if a software project loses all of its devs it will not be maintainable anymore by new hires.
I recognize that this is due to my imperfect summary/introduction of the paper, but it doesn't make that assertion. I highly recommend reading it; it's not that difficult or technical.
I've maintained systems where I could talk to the original developers, and I've maintained systems where I couldn't. I know there's a difference in outcomes between the two cases, but I wouldn't say the latter is "not maintainable". Certainly buggier and slower to develop against, though.