Will Open Source Ever Become Mainstream?

Prabhu Ramachandran asks: "I am a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley and as part of a course project I am trying to gather comments on the following question: Will the Open Source and Free Software communities develop software that will find widespread adoption amongst the mainstream, or is such software, by its nature, suitable only for sophisticated users? As part of my literature survey I found an academic perspective that seemed to indicate that open source projects do not reach the mainstream because the developers tend to listen only to their smartest customers. There also seems to be a lack of detailed documentation and an easy-to-use interface which normally attract the not-so-sophisticated users. I would like to hear the thoughts of Open Source developers and others on this issue. If you would like to view my references or the comments posted on a website hosted for this purpose, please visit my website." There have already been some interesting comments posted on his website. What is your take on this issue?

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open source already is mainstream

[dutky]

Many open source packages are already in the mainstream: the Apache web server, Mac OS X (the kernel and BSD layer, at least), QuickTime streaming server, RealMedia server and client, Netscape Navigator and Communicator, and the BIND domain name resolution system, just to name a few, are all open source packages in common use by people all over the world. You can't get much more mainstream than that.