Re: A problem with volunteered software development

[Kevin Forge <forgeltd@usa.net>]

Michael Slade wrote:
> 
> 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?

There are 2 ways to do this.  1 : Get some Win 95 refuges who can
program
to join the effort and do it for selfish reasons or get some GNU purists 
to do it so Linux won't be "tied" to any proprietary software.
See the KDE/Gnome fiasco to understand :)

As for educational software.  That is like Tax software.  Nobody wants
to write it because the mear ability to write it means you could do 
better without it ( I.e. teaching directly or filling out your tax
form manually ).  That sort of thing must be don't for the money :)

-- 
"Make easy things easy, and hard things possible."
mailto:forgeltd@usa.net  http://independence.dunadan.com/