An Open Letter to the Open Source Community

[Matt Zimmerman]

On Tue, May 22, 2007 at 10:56:18AM +0100, Andy wrote:
> 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.

Your implication is that women are less likely to have this skill and
knowledge, which is a circular argument.  "<group> are less likely to be
involved in <activity> because of a lack of experience and familiarity with
<activity>".  Hogwash.  What we are talking about here are the attitudes
which discourage women from becoming involved in free software in the first
place (which is how one learns about it).

> 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.

If you read Melissa's letter, you will see an extraordinary statistic there.

"Currently, according to FLOSSpols, in 2006, the average female
representation in Open Source is 1.5%. This is compared to 28% female
representation in the proprietary software industry."

A gender imbalance of 28% is evidence of a need for further improvement.  An
imbalance of 1.5% is a travesty, especially in a community which has been
founded on principles of openness, equality and freedom.

> How did you guys learn about Linux? I personally learnt about it at
> University and much of my course now run some flavour of Linux (mainly
> Ubuntu). If women are less educated in the field then this could
> account for the lower number of them in the community. Lack of
> interest in computing courses may suggest that women have less of an
> interest in computers, maybe we need to tackle this problem first?

Students who were young enough to have encountered Linux at university are
unlikely to have encountered computers for the first time at that point.
Technology education begins much earlier than that, and increasingly in the
home rather than in the classroom.  How did you first get access to a
computer?  Who encouraged you?

For a growing population of people, this early computing experience will be
based on free software.  Today, young people who take an interest in
computers should have the opportunity to explore software in much more depth
than ever before, because of free software.  A large and healthy free
software community can be the best technology education one could hope for.

One can learn through free software without a degree, without money for
software licenses or tuition, without a curricilum...all that is required is
a community which is supportive and open.  Unfortunately, the community as
it stands today is selective in its support and openness, and that is what
needs to change.

-- 
 - mdz