Critical mass
In physics, the minimum amount of fissionable material required to sustain a chain reaction.
Of a software product, describes a condition of the software such that fixing one bug introduces one plus
epsilon bugs.
(This malady has many causes:
creeping featurism, ports to too many disparate environments, poor initial design, etc.)
When software achieves critical mass, it can never be fixed; it can only be discarded and rewritten.
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Jargon File]
