I'm pretty sure his "free" was talking about keeping information and source code free for the people. He was all about open development and giving the work away for others to improve. However, I never remember hearing doctrine about how programmers should donate their time to writing software for the betterment of the unskilled masses. I do have to admit that I wasn't there at the beginning. I think we're probably splitting hairs at this point.

Unless you start a software welfare program or some other specifically directed program solely for writing things that would benefit the thankless masses without compensation I don't think you'll ever see what you want happen. Even if you did start such an organization I anticipate membership would be small and progress would be practically nonexistant. Again, it's all incumbent on you caring enough about this to go out and create it. In that respect I think open source movement provides you with a large number of tools to make things happen.