Dan Bricklin on Software That Lasts 200 Years

Lansdowne writes "Dan Bricklin, author of VisiCalc, has written a great new essay identifying a need for software that needs to last for decades or even centuries without replacement. Neither prepackaged nor custom-written software is fully able to meet the need, and he identifies how attributes of open source might help to produce long-lasting 'Societal Infrastructure Software'."

Comments

Re:Work on the hardware first.

[Deag]

Well Dan Bricklin does point out that software of today can run on different hardware and having software tied to specific hardware is a bad idea.

He says that the system should stay fundamentaly the same and components can be replaced and upgraded, not having everything replaced completely every five years.

He is not just talking about one specific program that doesn't change, but rather open standards and techniques that mean data that is stored today, will be accessible in 200 years time.

Re:Maybe it's needed, but who will develop it?

[peragrin]

Let's try it, Let's take an Office XP doc saved in the Office XP format and open it up in Office 97,

What it doesn't open properly? Geez that's A shocker.

Now you can save an office XP doc in office 97 format, and office 97 doc's can be opened in office XP but office XP doesn't open in Office 97.

MS does this because when one business upgrades, it forces the partners to upgrade as well. Why because most people have a hard time understanding what the different formats are.