Really?
The legend I heard was the day Digital Research was supposed to meet with IBM about CP/M the weather was too nice so all the Digital Research execs decided to go flying their private planes instead. The DR guys figured IBM would reschedule, CP/M was the only game in town after all. But IBM met with these upstarts named Microsoft, who were all too willing to get their feet in the door, even if it meant missing a nice day. S-100 also suffered from a lack of the proper big blue anointment.
No one is going to write boring business software for free. It hasn't happened yet, and it is probably never going to happen ever either. If this software is so vital for such a mass of small businesses as you say it is then they should get together, form a Kickstarter, and pay to have what they need made for them. Or they can learn how to program themselves.
I doubt these businesses are giving their bread and butter services away for free or they wouldn't need to track every detail so closely. Why it is commonly assumed that the FOSS community will simply provide these programs for free I'm not understanding.
I mean what's next, freebie pickup days in the salt mines? Volunteer programmers work on interesting projects they enjoy. No one lines up to do dull, drudge work, unless you re-compensate them.
FOSS is more about hands up than handouts.
