As far as I can tell, he means "Why is complex software hard to change" which is a reasonable, though fairly easy to answer, question.
Software doesn't rot. New features or refactors screw it up. New needs or technologies may make it obsolete. But it doesn't rot, and people who talk that way are often busy-body rewriters who want to pitch the existing implementations, with all their Chesterton Fences[1], and begin anew.
As far as I can tell, he means "Why is complex software hard to change" which is a reasonable, though fairly easy to answer, question.
Software doesn't rot. New features or refactors screw it up. New needs or technologies may make it obsolete. But it doesn't rot, and people who talk that way are often busy-body rewriters who want to pitch the existing implementations, with all their Chesterton Fences[1], and begin anew.
[1] http://www.chesterton.org/taking-a-fence-down/