Comment by teyc

This article reminds me of the one where MacDonald's returning CEO finds out that they have lost the recipe of the special sauce. It was kept so secret that they finally lost it, and but for the CEO knowing the guy who formulated it, brought him out of retirement to make one more batch, we'd never have it on our Macs today.

Software projects are like this too. After a few years, a lot of memory is lost if people leave.

I enjoyed the reference to "alien technology". Indeed it is.