http://akismet.com/

Cheers

I have few remarks (note that i applied a fast reading technique therefore i do not claim that i understood perfectly everything you wrote):
1/ be very carefull when you mix “scientific” analysis and terms such as “beauty”/”kind”. People working of writing theories and debating theories tend to agree that we should avoid to mix what if from the “pathos” and the “ethos”. The pathos is everything related to feelings, i.e., that you should not really explain/justify.
2/ based on the previous remark, i think you try to discuss about 2 very different aspects:
- what is a good software from the technical point of view
- what is a good software from the “political” point of view
For the first aspect, i think you point the good characteristics: a good software/program is something simple, extensible and configurable (something pretty rare at the end). A lot of operating system researcher actually worked on that.
For the second aspect, i think software is not anymore the correct term. I think “service” is more accurate: you use a software to provide or access a service. And then, the political aspect appears: what does the service is designed for? And clearly, we enter into the domain of project manager, business, …etc. Then, can we claim that the developer how is working on the implementation of such a service can be responsible for the ultimate usage of that specific service? i do not think so because most of the time he/she does not have a global view of the project (the managers give them a description of what they are supposed to do, nothing more).

To conclude, i think you touch a good point, just continue to think about the problem, you are just at the beginning of the process.

It was nice to read from you! Keep writing!