Thus, any app that aims to be generally usable by people in different disciplines will have to be able to take this into account.
Discussion is ongoing.
To rectify this, Matias Mutchinick is working with his colleagues at UNAM to produce a distro of Linux specifically for the needs of their faculty's students. If it goes well, we will continue to improve it. The problem is that some are not yet complete. The thing we are having problems with is finding a powerful, stable office suite, freely distributable. This is a great approach, as it enables an institutional standard to be used and supported by departmental computing.