Featurefull vs Usable

I’ve been having some thoughts recently on the paths that many open source projects seem to follow and who they are really designed for, the developer or the users?

As always, this is work in progress and I’d be happy to maybe do a presentation on this at some point…

Do we focus too much on cramming features into open source projects, instead of paying attention to making our products/projects something that people will genuinely want to use and enjoy using?

Does the desire for programmatic academic prowess outweigh the desire to polish and make things actually usable?

Are we trying to make software we want people to use or just please our egos and feelings of a job well done?

Or is it that we simply don’t have the resources to accomplish the polish found in some commercial products and relying on progress generally being made by volunteers means we get what they want to work on, not what may actually be needed.

What are your thoughts?

Image from thecollegestartup.com