Care to check a dictionary first? apendleton is not saying open source programmers should be ashamed that they haven't produce a high quality speech engine. Would you feel better if it was phrase like "it's a bummer that.."? Less hurt feelings?
I'm normally not a fan of condescending comments, but you hit the nail right on the head. It doesn't seem like some people grasp that a lot of open source projects are coded by unpaid volunteers in their free time in subjects they're passionate about.
Granted, there are commercial open source projects.
I'm sure everyone on HN is familiar with how open source projects work. The poster wasn't trying to tell contributors to get their act together and produce a higher quality product.
Beyond just lamenting the quality gap, they were trying to understand what it was that open source projects of this nature are missing. Is it lack of research making its way downstream? Poor media quality? There was no blame placed on contributors.
Understanding the answers to these questions can even help someone like the parent find an 'in' to contribute something themselves.
