The challenge here is that while most businesses assume software is just "produced" once and then earns them money indefinitely, the reality is that there is so

The challenge here is that while most businesses assume software is just "produced" once and then earns them money indefinitely, the reality is that there is some amount of "production" that needs to happen afterwards. Most dichotomies between ops and dev also come from the same gap, which is fundamentally not a "skills gap" - it is more of a "software developers are expensive, can we have 1 less expensive ops person supporting 10 services than the original 10 developers tied down in maintenance?". Businesses which are smart and understand software well know that regardless of how well you play it, there will be ongoing development after the initial release is done. Modern software which runs evergreen and gets worked on continuously is even less menable to the idea of "maintenance". The issue is creating a shared understanding that "software is never done-done". The decaying corpses of marketing iPad apps from 2010 show the only area where this is not the case - there is one very specific period when the app is relevant, and everyone knows that after nobody cares about the software even if some users would. What can help against the "maintenance trap" if the business is listening: * "Legacy" is a taboo word. Replace all instances of "legacy" with "this pays our salaries" * When you build a system, stay cognizant of when you want to put it to rest. If the system outlives that horizon - which often does happen esp. if it does pay your salaries - examine and extend that horizon. * Be very, very alert about people let into the organisation who pitch a "full rework to get rid of all the maintenance", and - if the system already in place is not absolute shite - just give those people a pass. The topic is very, very underresearched and the only article I saw about it which was truly astounding was https://apenwarr.ca/log/20171213 https://apenwarr.ca/log/20171213