An Open Letter to the Open Source Community

[Robert Carr]

On 5/22/07, Eric Dunbar <eric.dunbar at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 22/05/07, Andy <stude.list at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > This may offend some people, but then so does pretty much everything
> > nowadays.
>
> Sometimes the offence offered up is worthwhile, other times it is not!
>
> > I am not at all surprised that there is a low number of women in Open
> > Source/Free Software/GNU/Linux/Ubuntu (covering everything here ;)).
> > The problem with Linux and to a certain extent Free software in
> > general is it needs a higher level of skill and knowledge to use. Yes
> > many of you will now yell those immortal words "Linux is user
> > friendly" and I agree to an extent. But installing ANY OS is not a
> > simple task to some people.
> >
> > Many people do not know what OS they run let alone how to change it.
> > Neither do many of them know about open source.
> >
> > So what has this to do with the number of women in Linux/FLOSS. Well
> > in my experience women tend to be less well educated in the field. Go
> > and have a look around some Universities Computing departments, look
> > at many of the CS courses. Notice something? The ratio of Men to Women
> > isn't anywhere near 1:1.
>
> Intuitively such thinking makes sense, however, there's a flaw in the
> logic if the ratios Melissa's reported for proprietary and OSS
> development hold true (28% and 1.5%, respectively).
>
> Yes, in the past (and, perhaps even now -- don't know) there were a
> disproportionate number of men being trained in computer science
> departments, and, that would result in fewer women entering the field.
> What that wouldn't explain is why there are FAR more women in
> proprietary software than in open source development (again, if the
> ratios hold up under closer scrutiny -- instinct tells me that it's
> unlikely to be such a profound gap (an order of magnitude), but, if
> the gap is real then it's symptomatic of an even bigger problem (or,
> (less likely though) perhaps an indicator for a completely different
> approach to OSS that is gender-based?)).
>
> PS Melissa -- thanks for starting a thread on a very compelling and
> timely subject.
>

Unless we are willing to accept what I think would be some pretty
outrageous numbers (the open source community alienates greater than
20 women contributors for every one it attracts?) I think the problem
lies elsewhere.

In most cultures I am familiar with (and definitely in the US) women
are just less encouraged to be self motivated and interested in
subjects as an enjoyable intellectual pursuit than males, there is
just not the same motivation to "dream big", not to mention the
pressure to be mainstream. So, when you start to filter the population
by both females who have worked through the stereotype/pressure not go
to in to computing, and who have worked through the other pressures
that discourage them from being involved in something like open source
(and then possibly you lose a few due to discrimination in the
community...), the numbers get pretty small.