A problem with volunteered software development

[Michael Slade <mslade@cadre.com.au>]

A slightly abstract topic, but one I thought might be worthy of shedding
some light on.

I've noticed that the free software phenomenon suffers from a subtle
kind of selfishness - most of the software out there for Linux - albeit
with one or two notable exceptions (SEUL being one of them, of course :)
- is written by the programmers, *for* the programmers.  This still
results in a lot of great software, but certain areas get left out.

Educational software seems to be one of them; the recent discussions
about the lack of educational software make me think.

How might we counteract this?  How might we encourage more volunteer
programmers to write their programs with the average computer-illiterate
Win95-loving user in mind?

Comments?

Mick.