[clug] Open Source Software's Dirty Little Secret

[Daniel Pittman]

Michael James <michael at james.st> writes:
> On 10/09/2009, at 10:01 AM, Lana Brindley wrote:
>
>> Without in any way wanting to restart the flame fest we had recently over
>> the topic of women in Open Source, I did want to share this article with
>> the list:
>>
>> http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/12068_3838186_1/
>>    Sexism-Open-Source-Softwares-Dirty-Little-Secret.htm
>> (You're going to have to put the 2 halves of that lobng URL back together)

[...]

> The problem is ongoing despite the statistics sticking out like dogs balls.
> So there is probably something wrong with the approaches taken.

I suspect that part of the issue is that this is an old problem, but has only
recently become part of the zeitgeist in the free-and-open-source community.
Look back a few years and it was a known issue, but it wasn't an "everywhere"
issue, as far as I can tell.

So, people are now approaching the problem as a problem, rather than mostly
ignoring it or simple never encountering the question at all.  I can certainly
say that, for me, this was the case five or six years back with some
confidence.

[...]

> Someone researching this could do an analysis of forums with a high level of
> female participation contrasted to the FOSS and other male dominated**
> forums.

You might want to look at the research that has already been done on that
specific topic; various studies of participation in the DreamWidth project,
for example, focus on precisely this.

Regards,
        Daniel
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