IMO again, this apply only along the social dimension of software. I can still boot up my decade-old computer and use decade-old software to do useful work (hell, many if not most factories do that all the time). I can be screwed over if I go on-line - either by getting pwnd, or by letting the OS update itself - but as long as I stay away from the Internet, the machine will keep working, and so will the software.
(Then again, 'smilliken turned out to be talking about much larger timescales - not decades, but centuries. There, no software artifact will survive, only its mathematical essence.)
IMO again, this apply only along the social dimension of software. I can still boot up my decade-old computer and use decade-old software to do useful work (hell, many if not most factories do that all the time). I can be screwed over if I go on-line - either by getting pwnd, or by letting the OS update itself - but as long as I stay away from the Internet, the machine will keep working, and so will the software.
(Then again, 'smilliken turned out to be talking about much larger timescales - not decades, but centuries. There, no software artifact will survive, only its mathematical essence.)