The Achilles Heel of open source?

Open Office is one of the most popular open source projects around. It has about 50 million users, the software supports dozens of languages, and it replicates (free) all the major functions of Microsoft Office.

But since announcing its contest for templates and clipart the reaction has been one of crickets chirping.

Gerry Singleton, co-leader of the project's documentation project, says he's looking to extend the entry deadline, maybe to November 1. 

"We're looking for something that does something useful, like a family budget. Or checkbook reconciliation. We don't have that. There are bits and pieces around, but no one has done one that's complete."

Because OpenOffice is free and open source, it can be hard both getting help from the user community and getting that help back out, Singleton says. "There's a very small core of proper tech writers," and most have good-paying jobs. A Wiki might collect bad ideas which would lead users into problems they could blame on the software.

This is the biggest problem open source faces. Soliciting help, filtering offers so you only repeat accurate help, and disseminating that help so it is truly useful is hard. Proprietary companies pay people to do this stuff. Open source projects can't.

Is this the Achilles' Heel of open source, the key weakness which can destroy the movement? Instead of just answering in the comments, lend Open Office a hand. Prove my fears unfounded