I submitted a link recently to an open issue on a side project focused on polishing Ubuntu for ordinary users; they have feedback from an ordinary user which they acknowledge is exactly the sort of thing they're looking for and they open the case and move it into progress and then ... it's sidelined. A request to "fade" icons when files are cut, and it's been open since 2003.<p>Not for lack of time, clearly. Not for lack of ideas what to do there are plenty of those. Not for lack of effort or interest - many many people have been involved. Not for lack of coders, there are patches referenced. Not for lack of a place to track the issue, there was one, now two.<p>That's a microcosm of your humanity reaching for the stars but are unable to manage the last cohesive push and everything collapses into war, civilisation flickers out and the unthinking void closes over the solar system again sci-fi story right there. That's your Adobe can't get it's act together tale, but happening in public.<p>So what <i>was</i> lacking?<p>I can't help but tie everything back to the iPad this week, but isn't this missing thing in the development process exactly what Apple has and the much pointed to Netbooks and Android and ChromeOS's and Maemo's don't?<p>A unified vision, a benevolent dictator, a plan by which each suggested fix can be measured? GvR runs his personal is_pythonic?() filter over any suggested additions to Python, his way or the highway. Rich Hickey drives clojure and Miguel de Icaza heads up Mono.<p>Maybe what the suggested openpad needs is a figurehead with a vision who could step in and make decisions and force it to coalesce into a particular shape? And maybe that's incompatible with being "open" shaped. But I wouldn't mind being wrong about that.