An Open Letter to the Open Source Community (Matt Zimmerman)

[Melissa Draper]

Chris Puttick wrote:
> Well, I keep being dragged back into this one, but it is because I
> hate discrimination. Passionately.
>
> (comments inline below)
>
> On 23/05/07, sounder-request at lists.ubuntu.com
> <sounder-request at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:
>> ---------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 12:03:18 +0100
>> From: Matt Zimmerman <mdz at ubuntu.com>
>> Subject: Re: An Open Letter to the Open Source Community
>> To: sounder at lists.ubuntu.com
>> Message-ID: <20070523110318.GA9404 at alcor.net>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>>
>> 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).
>>
>
> Hold on there - the attitudes that are being demonstrated by a small
> minority of people on a small minority of of lists, attitudes that are
> held by, at very least, the same proportion of people in the wider
> world, these are discouraging millions of women from becoming more
> involved in free software? Nonsense. Whatever it is that is
> discouraging women from being (visibly) involved in free software, it
> is not these rare occurrences.

Now you hold on. While those who say and do the counterproductive
behaviours are indeed a minority, and nobody has dismissed this, the
majority of people, (hint: _nearly_ everyone else) that _lets it happen_
isn't a minority. If it were, people would speak up where needed, and it
would not be a hidden issue, like it has come to be. Additionally, while
the primary offenders are thankfully a minority, this minority is not
limited to any one contact medium, topical list, etc. Every contact
medium and topical list has the potential to be poisoned in this way. No
community is immune.

While yes, this is an issue in the wider world, it does not in any way,
shape, form or context make it happening here, right. It is not right.
This is why I wrote the letter. This is why I aimed this letter to this
community.

Had I written an open letter to the world, I would have been slightly on
the nutty side -- or at least perceived to be so. One step at a time,
please.

Someone has to be the one to stand up and say something. Why not the
Open Source community -- a community built around a definition that
mandates no discrimination, but which is failing to live up to this mandate.

http://opensource.org/docs/osd:
"5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons."

>
> We could get into a lengthy debate on whether it is some difference
> between men and women (averaged, in general, etc. etc.) which makes
> men more likely to be involved with free software, and whether that
> difference is historic, cultural, chemical, genetic or some
> combination or all or some of these, but surely we can agree it is not
> these few specific instances of specific behaviour.
>
> Consider that it is unlikely that a woman, getting active in the
> community, is deterred by such a low incidence of offensive activity;
> consider the improbability that large numbers of women are joining
> lists or viewing sites at the very instant that one of these instances
> occur and that they all immediately generalise this instance to the
> entire community and sign off in disgust. Maybe it is the culture of
> the average list/forum/site that is in some way alien to many women,
> and a change in that culture would be needed to make women feel more
> welcome. But if we change the culture do we then alienate the existing
> members?
>

I think Matt answered this pretty succinctly in his reply, so I need not
bother.

>>> 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.
>
> A gender imbalance is not evidence of sexism. There is a gender
> imbalance in everything. Modify the "thing" to remove the imbalance
> and it more or less invariably becomes imbalanced in another way (see
> UK university gender numbers for example). In this particular case, it
> is clear that the gender imbalance is sourced in something way below
> the software industry and seemingly way below even secondary education
> (K12, age ~11-18, for comparators in different countries).
>
> The comparative case is also highly problematic as evidence of
> anything - this almost certainly not a like-for-like comparison. The
> FLOSSpols survey would not have counted my partner and her team, yet
> the team is 2/3 women and contribute to open source in their area
> (digital preservation and repositories); FLOSSpols was presumably a
> voluntary survey; the general industry figure will be collected
> corporately and probably from countries where gender imbalance is on
> the poliical agenda i.e. the figures may well be inflated for the good
> of the individual company. And then there is the job-type question: do
> we have a list of the different types of jobs counted in FLOSSpols and
> the breakdown of women v. men in each type, and the same for the
> industry figures?

I don't have figures for the job types, but if you look closely at the
community, we actually do have many of these 'job' distinctions' within
the Open Source community anyway. Take me for example. I do not code,
package, or do tech support. Rather I predominantly help with connecting
people, team management through the LoCo project and so forth (think
HR), marketing (think PR), and as an IRC op (think customer
service/switchboard operators).

>
> <snip>
>
> Stop calling people sexist without evidence that they are in any
> particular way. People are different: gender, culture, race, religion;
> all differences that contribute to individuality. Take any group with
> the same any three of those factors and you'll find more similarities
> than you would with a randomly selected group. Exclude no one and
> eliminate discrimination; discriminate and discrimination continues.
>
> Chris
>
Chris, I did not call people sexist, rather, complacent. We are
complacent about standing up against what is intrinsically wrong,
subconsciously assuming it will go away, or someone else will fix it. We
cannot think like that any longer. This mode of thought has led us into
this situation, keeping the same mode of thought is unlikely to get us
out of it.

-- 
Sincerely
Melissa Draper

http://www.meldraweb.com

Phone: 0404 595 395
(intl): +61 404 595 395

P.O Box 1412
Lavington, NSW 2641