I worked at an organization that had gone years without any updates: 10 year old dependencies that had never been updated, actively developed Python 2 code base in 2022, servers with 1000+ day uptimes and hadn't been updated since before the pandemic, on and on.
It made it difficult to get anything done because you had to wade through a dumpster fire to make the smallest change.
It certainly felt like bit rot to me.
It’s something that just breaks down without any changes in use case. If a wooden bridge rots away, nobody means that they were unable to add extra lanes. They mean it ceased to do what it previously did.
“Code calcification” is likely a better approximation of what you’re trying to convey.
“Bit rot” would be better fitting to actual storage loss, but this industry chose poorly.
> the phenomenon where working software seems to deteriorate even when the code is untouched
If the code is touched, and fails to keep up with dependencies, I might argue that's more a case of bit neglect. But maybe that's semantics.
I do agree that bitrot can be real though. Links rot off the web. If you're going to leave a project sitting on git without maintenance, you should probably capture the build context. Like shrink-wrapping a boat and storing it on land rather than just leaving it rusting away in the water for years.
> The first is that it’s a partial explanation for bitrot, the phenomenon where working software seems to deteriorate even when the code is untouched.