From what I have seen about this it's all tied up with academic research projects, and if there is one group of people with absolutely no sense for engineering,

From what I have seen about this it's all tied up with academic research projects, and if there is one group of people with absolutely no sense for engineering, it's modern academics. They seem to not get that software that can be used for some commercial application (i.e. something that serves some actual user) is much more important than software that can pad your resume.