What if a package is abandoned by a maintainer and ceases to be updated?
An abandoned package can leave the work in a much better state than the original code, and never in a worse one. It contains the original code plus metadata about its conservation history in the form of changelogs and patches. Patches amount to decisions by a conservator, and some of those patches will incorporate changes done for policy reasons, but some of them will be bugfixes in the original code or adaptations for later technology. So even if your Software Ar work is packaged today, maintained for fifty years and then abandoned, it will be in a much better state when the 2105 arrives and your school experiences a centenary revival.
