Code what you need. Code what you want. Share it with the masses.
As it turns out I see more and more people who know almost nothing about open source or free software installing open/free operating systems and applications every day. At least thats how it seems in mailing lists and forums I watch. I believe this is because the barriers to use are being reduced and the general level of technical literacy of the general public is increasing every day. This seems to not satisfy your expectation that programmers should be donating their spare time to write drivers for esoteric hardware they'll never own or need so that some amorphous group of masses can benefit for free. On top of that you're not willing to be the programmer who donates his time... I still don't see a failure. I don't see any implicit promise to deliver what group a wants free of charge out of the kindness of group b's little coding heart.
Re: I think you just made a very good point
As it turns out I see more and more people who know almost nothing about open source or free software installing open/free operating systems and applications every day. At least thats how it seems in mailing lists and forums I watch. I believe this is because the barriers to use are being reduced and the general level of technical literacy of the general public is increasing every day. This seems to not satisfy your expectation that programmers should be donating their spare time to write drivers for esoteric hardware they'll never own or need so that some amorphous group of masses can benefit for free. On top of that you're not willing to be the programmer who donates his time... I still don't see a failure. I don't see any implicit promise to deliver what group a wants free of charge out of the kindness of group b's little coding heart.