> It would be a global good to counteract the local incentives for producing perishable software.
What are we talking about here? Asking people to not write bugs?
What are we talking about here? Asking people to not write bugs?
I think of it like a car where parts can be replaced if those parts have an issue, but the designs of the connectors stays the same, and replacements are available. A 100-year car isn't one that requires no maintenance for 100 years; it is one that can be maintained, and replacement parts can be acquired, and it will still continue working.
If a car depends on a remote server, such that the car stops operating when the remote server is shut down, then that car is perishable.
Unless the car is built primarily with 3rd-party parts (from manufacturers like Bosch, Brembo, etc) - which is something that consumers usually hold against a car, like how many people are upset that the new Toyota Supra is actually a BMW - then the problem is almost completely analogous to the shutting down of remote servers; if the manufacturer goes defunct or can no longer make a profit by continuing service, the car’s life has perished.
And in fact, the only way to avoid this is super conglomerates and monopolies - Lamborghini parts should always be available, because they come from the Audi parts bin, which comes from the Volkswagen parts bin.
My 2017 Volvo XC 90 somehow begins to casually malfunction whenever I drive it beyond a few service warnings. The car is HEAVILY software dependent. It can technically drive itself and park itself too. This behavior somehow disappears once the dealer performs software updates. It's pretty strange, and I worry it's a ticking time bomb for when I reach the end of my warranty on the car.
There is also something missing from my metaphor which is that even when the parts no longer exist, the car can still continue to run until it breaks down, rather than being remotely killed due to an external signal separated from the car itself (e.g. servers shutting down and triggering some switch in the code).
Note I said bugs, not add new features, you can charge for features, but if I don't want the feature you should still fix the bug.