women in open source
DESCRIPTION
"Women in Open Source" talk presented at DevFestW Philippines last March 9, 2013.TRANSCRIPT
Who am I?
Software architect & developer from Exist Software Labs
Involved in the Open Source community since late 2005
Project Management Committee (PMC) chairperson of the Archiva project at the Apache Software Foundation
Committer of Apache Maven and Apache Continuum
What is open source?
Development method that harnesses transparency and distributed peer review
Literally, source codes of software is open - An end to predatory vendor lock-in
Most cases, Free as in free speech.. and free beer!
My story...
Some statistics...
Tech community, 10-30% are female
At my work... only about 15 to 20% of the developers are female
In 2006, only 1.5% of Open Source software developers are female
In the ASF, only 3% (13 out of 432 members) are women
Why the small number???
impression that participants must have a long history with computers...
Photo from http://www.24-7gags.com/the-evolution-of-man-and-computer/
the “hacker” ethic\m/
Photo from http://www.garythomas20.50webs.com/what_is_a_hacker.htm
Photo from http://cynchanz.blogspot.com/2011/10/antisocial-in-me.html
stereotype of being
“anti-social”
Survey says...
Male:Female
72% felt outnumbered while 24% felt alienated
54% are more inclined to participate if there are more women
Awareness
41% are unaware of active user’s groups at universities
92% felt that universities don’t do enough
Discrimination and Harassment
50% witnessed gender-based discrimination
50% had experienced harassment
38% says it’s not a deterring factor
founded in January 2011 by Valerie Aurora and Mary Gardiner
promotes women in open technology & culture
develop anti-harassment policies for conferences
create policy framework for developing programs for women
Photo from http://adainitiative.org/
Confidence & commitment
100% believe that confidence is an important factor
72% said prior experience w/ computers is important to be successful
89% participated in OS community both at work & at home
Stereotypes
77% prefer OSS dev’t over proprietary software dev’t
53% prefer a collaborative environment over working independently
66% disagreed that OS is “anti-social”
Call for action...
Since my involvement in Open Source, I got
to...
grow my knowledge and skills
attend, give talks at conferences (and overcome my shyness :)
meet some great people!
co-author a book! (Apache Maven 2: Effective Implementation)
Photo from http://www.thecampanil.com/miss-representation-empowering-women-in-the-media/
Women’s Community Groups
Debian Women
LinuxChix
DrupalChix
KDE Women
Ubuntu Women
PHP Women
Fedora Women
Women @ ASF Community Dev
OpenSource Initiative’s [email protected]
The ADA Initiative
Geek Feminism
Resources and References
Journal of Information Technology Management - GENDER DIFFERENCES WITHIN THE OPEN SOURCE COMMUNITY: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY
Geek Feminism -http://geekfeminism.org/
The Ada Initiative - http://adainitiative.org/
Apache Software Foundation - http://apache.org/
Kirrily Robert’s “Standing Out in the Crowd” - OSCON 2009
and thank you to...
All the inspiring women in IT who kick ass! :)
Photo from networkworld.com’s “Dreadfully Few Women Are Open Source Developers”“ (http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/58218)
Thank you :-)