The smart software companies like Google and Red Hat know this and respond directly to their users. They have already made the mistake of not communicating and have suffered and learned. When you draw from the Open Source community, it’s like outsourcing in that you leverage the knowledge, interest and capability of the project team, rather than relying on yourself or our organization as the sole source of these. This is not the same as dealing with one-off tasks for customers (those that sap the energy of programmers, leaving them tired), because the Community’s stories and specs are more direct and closer to the true needs and capabilities of the users and developers engaged in the discussion. It's more efficient.