An Open Letter to the Open Source Community

David Gerard dgerard at gmail.com
Mon May 28 09:22:35 BST 2007


Robert Carr wrote:

>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.


I find those numbers entirely believable. Check the Ubuntu Community
Manager's response when Caroline Ford dared consider a sexist joke on
an Ubuntu mailing list a Code of Conduct violation (as I would have
thought any sane person would):

http://www.jonobacon.org/?p=932

Not only was the trying to get her to withdraw the complaint, other
Canonical employees were emailng her to try to get her to withdraw the
complaint, with veiled threats that they would treat her complaint of
CoC violation as a CoC violation. 'Cos shutting up the complainer
makes the problem go away, doesn't it.

Thankfully, Jono appears to have gained a clue since then:

http://www.jonobacon.org/?p=971

So I guess everything's marvellous now! Of course, that's one
contributor driven away and unlikely to come back (hell, she
considered Wikipedia work less infuriating than Ubuntu work), but at
least Ubuntu was protected from the scourge of political correctness
for a time.


- d.



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