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Dan Bricklin on Software That Lasts 200 Years

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the in-it-for-the-long-term dept.

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'."

1 of 359 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Work on the hardware first. by Deag · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.