Women in Open Source Free Software

Agaric's Subtitle: How not to be a jerk, to anybody
Agaric's further commentary: lack of female participation in free software projects is a failing and a huge liability for the critically important software (and ideas, information, and knowledge) freedom movement.
It also strongly indicates less human involvement than we otherwise would have.
I expect this will change dramatically – more students in journalism schools are women now, to take a previously male-dominated profession – but the low percentage is insane and we all should try to do something about it. Oh, and everyone out there, you, yes you, can code!

Angie Byron did a talk on women in open source software a little while ago, and I watched it, and took notes, even though I didn't have time. So if you found this through search you can go direct to the source here:

http://www.archive.org/details/onlinux_womeninopensource

Female representation in proprietary software developers
28%

Open source:
1.5%

(from the audience)
and they're all queer

diversity makes open source more powerful

Driving away women means driving away contributors.

Both women and men.

And the men driven away by sexist jokes are the smart ones.

We shouldn't be driving anyone away.

And frankly, we kick ass.

Drupal: Karen Stevenson.

So why aren't there more women in open source?

Social reasons.

Women are discouraged from technology [across the board]

in childhood
in popular media
in social expectations

FLOSS polls
first computer access
12 versus 14.5
first computer possession
15 versus 19

Lack of confidence
58% males felt prepared
0% of females
yet 6 of the 7 had A and B averages

You get a lot of

"So that explains it, right?" Oh well, so what are you going to do

Those are true of

Time to look into the mirror.

Anonymity.

Say homophobic, racist, sexist comments.

Competitive nature of open source.

Pages long flame wars about

Whoever can argue the loudest, longest
aggressive and loud gets to the

Does anyone know what a loud aggressive woman is called?

Perception that you have to be like einstein
but then you get on this side of the fence
it's not about who can code the best, it's who can contribute to the community

OMG: A girl!

Blind spot: Have you ever observed discriminatory behavior against women in open source.

75% females said yes
75% of males said no

Some examples:
- "Jokes"
if you can't tell it in a room full of women, one of
- Dates/marriage proposals
a guy will think this is a compliment
what this does is invalidates the technical contributions, and reduces you to an object good for producing babies. Would you say it to so-and-so male colleague
- Doubting our intelligence/expertise
give reasons in arguing against an idea, don't assert "I'm right"

Horror stories
offensive (and stupid) ad
'creating passionate users' writer's experience
threats

What can people already in

Be sensitive to discrimination.
And take action when it happens.

There are jerks out there. They're going to post to your mailing list.

If she sees someone step in and say dude, we don't do that stuff here.

Don't do the long awkward silence thing. [Have several people quickly say that isn't cool, and immediately move on to 'how about that patch']

Value all contributions, not just code.
Documentation, testing, and user support are often gateways for super-hackers of the future.
Don't pigeonhole people there.

Just say No to RTFM. Take an extra 30 seconds to point the way.

Children who aren't even born yet and come by and see that [and say this project sucks]

Help people who want to help you.
- Better documentation
- Mentorship program

Google Summer of Code
Drupal Dojo

Open source is fun!
hacking away all night to solve an annoying bug and yes!!

a constant source of new knowledge and experiences
code review

your not just solving a bug for yourself, your solving it for lots of people

...an excellent career move

After Summer of Code, I was going to get a real job
people kept throwing a couple hundred dollars at me
and then gut hired at Lullabot

Pick a project that interests you!
Or start one of your own.

IRC, mailing list,
Lurk first. Evaluate the community. Is it a good fit?
Contribute as early and often as possible.

Don't tolerate BS.
Choose your battles [though]
look for opportunities for education
sometimes while staying joking
in private: please, that's not cool, stop that
then push them on public lists if they don't
report them to project lead
Guys, you should be doing this too.

LinuxChix
women or men

massively underrepresented, that's bad
we can all do something about that, that's good

http://flosspols.org

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Encourage-Women-Linux-HOWTO/
http://linuxchix.org
http://oreillynet.com/womenintech/

woman in audience: I was on The Linux Documentation Project - went back and forth on should we include this

I've never felt my gender was a problem
worked primarily with Debian
wasn't the issue, it was that this didn't work

Rephrasing of a question: How do you balance having a life with participating on the same level as people who do not have lives?

In Drupal there's not so much emphasis on constant contributions.

Seek out a smaller

Woman in audience: A lot of the community factors that are affecting women are affecting men too.

Angie: One of the good things about this is that everyone

a document that just encourages good behavior

at the time it was written, men were saying it's not a problem

but that could be revised to be more positive

(and it cuts off.)