"Hard disks are banned" seems like it would be a show-stopper for many folks.

Agreed. If the comment is difficult to follow, odds are the code will also be difficult to understand.

Agreed with the general lack of algorithm experience. However, this knowledge can still be obtained professionally. I think, if you can't say "look at my degree", you should be able to say "look at all this software I've built over the past four years, it proves I know a thing or two".

I wonder if these code improvements lead to overall usability. That seems to be the biggest stumbling block for open source, not stability.

They fade away.

The usefulness of such technology simply isn't there. So why bother with it? I guess it just sounds cool.

Within programmer month, a day is dedicated to developers for a certain language. Except, of course, Java developers.

I haven't actually dumped an open source application in favour of a proprietary alternative because it was difficult to install. I could, however, completely understand why some users after attempting to install and configure open source applications would make the move. The installation and initial configuration experience is the first impression and is important to get right. It is the first impression the software gives as to how good/usable/stable it really is. How can you get feedback regarding other aspects of the software if they can't get past step one?

I guess the next best thing would be a library that handles the thread pooling and figures out how to manage things.