Requirements are a way for non-technical users to communicate with and participate in open source projects. As such, they are very important.
It's true that many users do not have the ability to comment fully on the wishes for software. Which is the problem with requirements for open source? How do you elicit comments? How do you help people assess and express their computing needs? It's seems to me what's missing in OSS is the middleware -- the interface between developers and customers.
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Requirements are a way for non-technical users to communicate with and participate in open source projects. As such, they are very important. It's true that many users do not have the ability to comment fully on the wishes for software. Which is the problem with requirements for open source? How do you elicit comments? How do you help people assess and express their computing needs? It's seems to me what's missing in OSS is the middleware -- the interface between developers and customers.