Hi Matt, I think there is a lot of hidden talent in our group, but we just haven't found the appropriate outlet for it. Talking about myself specifically, I'm a CS major with programming background in C, C++, and Java. Have a need for anyone like that? I've never participated in a FOSS project before, so I'd need a lot of mentoring and tutoring at first about how things are done. (I'm also a busy grad student, so I'd be able to put more effort into things during the summer.) I think for a lot of people (not just women) its hard to find a place to start. ~Meg <div>On 3/12/07, Matt Good <<a href="mailto:matt@matt-good.net"> matt@matt-good.net</a>> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">I just read Mirjam's blog post[1] from Planet Ubuntu which covers some interesting findings from a study on female involvement in F/LOSS[2] and have read through most of the study itself. Some of the figures, particularly those on age and education level of women involved in OSS were new to me and I'd highly recommend reading the findings. However, I was disappointed that the recommendations were all specific to government organizations. While I'm sure these are good ideas, it doesn't really help me as an individual OSS participant. I have been active on the Trac project[3] for several years, and it is where I invest most of my OSS involvement. Articles such as "HOWTO Encourage Women in Linux"[4] offer good suggestions for behaviors that can be applied in online communications (IRC/email) or Real Life, which I'm sure I could be better at, but I'm also wondering if there are ways as part of an OSS development team I can be more actively reaching out to women in the community to encourage their involvement. Finding where to draw the line between "Do encourage women in computing" and "Don't stare and point when women arrive" is not easy. Would it be helpful for me to post here and/or on the Trac mailing list looking for women interested in contributing to Trac? Any other suggestions for me or developers on other projects? -- Matt Good [1] <a href="http://zerlinna.blogweb.de/archives/139-Women-in-linux.html"> http://zerlinna.blogweb.de/archives/139-Women-in-linux.html</a> [2] <a href="http://flosspols.org/deliverables/D16HTML/FLOSSPOLS-D16-Gender_Integrated_Report_of_Findings.htm">http://flosspols.org/deliverables/D16HTML/FLOSSPOLS-D16-Gender_Integrated_Report_of_Findings.htm </a> [3] <a href="http://trac.edgewall.org/">http://trac.edgewall.org/</a> [4] <a href="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Encourage-Women-Linux-HOWTO/">http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Encourage-Women-Linux-HOWTO/</a> -- ubuntu-women mailing list <a href="mailto:ubuntu-women@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-women@lists.ubuntu.com</a> <a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-women">https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-women</a> </blockquote> </div>