In software engineering, we only ever maintain processes, not artifacts. Software modularity when it exists is usually extremely coarse and rigid when compared

In software engineering, we only ever maintain processes, not artifacts. Software modularity when it exists is usually extremely coarse and rigid when compared to the malleability of electro-mechanical systems. Got a bug to fix or a feature to implement on a program? Modify the source code, run the build system, use the newly built artifact and discard the old one. Lose this process and you're screwed because the tooling for modifying an extant program is still in the Dark Ages. It's not just about proprietary software that has reached its end of support, given enough time almost any source code tree will bitrot past the point where rebuilding it will require a major overhaul. When you need to fix or customize a physical artifact like a coffee machine, you usually don't go inside the factory to change the blueprints and manufacture a new one. You just modify the one you have with standardized tools. It also doesn't matter how old the artifact is, even if it's decades out of production it can still usually be disassembled and put back together as if it was fresh out of the assembly line. The more software bleeds into electro-mechanical systems, the less repairable, versatile and hackable they become.