Students as an Untapped Resource

[Steve R.]

As a casual observer to the progress of LINUX I have been wondering whether the LINUX community ever uses the university system for development? Most university have computer programming department, students in earning their degrees usually have to undertake projects, so why not provide a list of LINUX projects that require development and can be used for academic credit?

It would seem to be a waste of student talent for students to undertake "standard" learning projects that have been done over and over again by many students when they could be taking on new leaning projects that can actually be implemented.