Weekly Edition
Return to the Front pageSponsored link
Vyatta –
Linux & Open Source
Alternative to Cisco –
Advanced Routing,
Firewall, VPN, QoS..
Free Download ->
| |||||||||||
Yet another male perspective on women in free software
O'Reilly has been running a series of articles on women
in technology which has an emphasis on encouraging women to enter the
field. LWN has, in its usual way, posted pointers to a subset of those
articles; most of those pointers have resulted in lengthy conversations
among LWN readers. Those readers, true to their usual form, have managed
to hold a higher-level discussion than has been seen in other forums. That
said, there have been a lot of bits expended on discussions of topics like
relative brain sizes, differing approaches to family life, the true
femininity of transsexuals, and so on. Your editor, not generally known
for being short of opinions, could expound on many of these topics, but
that is not going to happen here. Such discussions are not really relevant
to the topic at hand.
The relevant discussion, it seems, can be much more simple and straightforward, concentrating on a few basic points:
There is no need to get drawn into blind alleys about genetic links to mathematical ability or the demands of family life. There is no point in being distracted by strawmen, be they an outspoken feminist that somebody finds particularly obnoxious or the notion that somebody is calling for a quota of 50% female participation. There is no shortage of incredibly smart, talented, and interested women out there who have found our community unwelcoming; that, on its own terms, is a problem. When comments (not on LWN, happily) respond to this year's kernel summit group photo by comparing the relative merits of the few female developers found there, our community as a whole becomes that much more hostile. When certain Linux publications run overtly demeaning ads, a clear view of how women should participate in free software is being communicated. When sexist idiots drive one of the most humorous and human diaries off the net, we all lose out. When well-intentioned commenters employ terms like "sausage fest," they show that we still clearly miss the point. When women are harassed at Linux events, there is a good chance that they will not come back. And when all of these things (and worse) drive people out of our community, we are all impoverished as a result. Making things better does not require the establishment of some sort of police force to enforce extensive rules. We do not need to replicate Gentoo's "proctors" experiment. We do not have to establish official codes of conduct, though making it clear that a certain level of polite and respectful behavior is expected cannot hurt. But if we can recognize the problem - that our community's behavior is driving away women and many other potential contributors - without trying to bury it in irrelevant strawman arguments, we will be off to a good start. We are, as a community, good at solving problems once we realize that they need our attention. This one needs our attention. (Log in to post comments)
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 4, 2007 3:34 UTC (Thu) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link] I've always felt that the proper question is not "How can we recruit more women to participate in FOSS?" but "How can we help ensure that people who choose to participate in FOSS are treated fairly?" and let as many women join in as care to do so. If more men than women choose to participate in FOSS development... is that a tragedy?
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 4, 2007 9:48 UTC (Thu) by mmarkov (subscriber, #4978) [Link] I agree completely with you. In a perfect world the gender/height/hair colour/etc. of the participants would not matter.
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 4, 2007 12:25 UTC (Thu) by i3839 (subscriber, #31386) [Link] I'm pretty sure you can't tell my gender/height/hair colour/etc, because all you know is my obscure random name. So is the internet a perfect world?
Personally I'm driven off from two projects, one because the main developers didn't appreciate outsiders working on their code and criticizing their code, even if it was on features they had on their todo list for years (and after digging in the mail archive, were implemented before multiple times by other outsiders).
The other was from a forum after they added code of conduct rules, but abused those for censoring things they didn't like. In my case, quotes from things that were said on a public mailing list, unfortunately the things said weren't very flattering, though highly amusing and said by moderators of that forum. And I even was so kind to not quote the mails where personal insults were flying around. I was a moderator too, but power abuse and censorship isn't something I tolerate, so after they refused to admit they did anything wrong I left.
There are too often power hungry types that can't control themselves who drive off lots of people, but do get more control over a project than is healthy.
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 4, 2007 12:38 UTC (Thu) by mmarkov (subscriber, #4978) [Link] I'm pretty sure you can't tell my gender/height/hair colour/etc, because all you know is my obscure random name. So is the internet a perfect world?No. I meant that when a group of people is trying to accomplish something together, ideally it is one's quality of work that should matter, not one's gender. That is what the grandparent post said.
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 6, 2007 11:34 UTC (Sat) by i3839 (subscriber, #31386) [Link] My point was that that already seems to be the case, but that the problems are more likely related to other things, like hostility, politics and other power games and generic immaturity going on too often.
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 12, 2007 14:59 UTC (Fri) by obi (guest, #5784) [Link] By judging someone purely on their technical merits, and not at all on their (lack of) social skills, you risk losing way more people (and their technical expertise) than you gain by tolerating this person.
It's a trade-off, but a lot of people don't see it that way.
The problem isn't that everyone should be treated equally (that should be a given, but it's true that some can't even manage that). The problem is that everyone should not be mistreated equally. Allowing abusive behaviour and telling people not to be thin-skinned, will only leave people that have an affinity or high tolerance for abuse.
I don't believe there's a need for censorship or banning or anything like that. I simply think the problem would be a lot better if people were to just speak up whenever someone uses unnecessarily abusive language.
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 16, 2007 0:57 UTC (Tue) by einhverfr (guest, #44407) [Link] I think that the key is that we shouldn't be judging *people* on technical merits but rather contributions. And helping people contribute.
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 16, 2007 3:43 UTC (Tue) by einhverfr (guest, #44407) [Link] I think I forgot to publish my previous comment, but my most successful open source project at the moment (LedgerSMB) was actually a reaction against many of those same issues you describe. So, I have (as a male) been driven away from at least one project for the exact same reasons you describe. The fact of the matter is that poorly run projects *should* be abandoned. I guess I would share my thoughts as a project leader (we are lead by a core team of six which have equal voices and of which no business employs more than one). This is designed actually to avoid the major problem you describe, which is that people turn into [unflattering adjective] when they have power but feel threatened. By ensuring that the people who have power are in competition with eachother economically, we can help ensure that the community *as a whole* works together. Yes, we have our arguments (some of which are quite vehement) but we respect eachother and (usually) eventually make the right choices. However, I think that there is another issue. How do we encourage participation in general? Do we welcome participants in our community? See the challenge isn't recruiting women. The challenge is ensuring that everyone is able to benefit by contributing as they see fit. Maybe the contribution is code. Maybe it is a usability suggestion. Maybe it is help with press releases. The point is-- it shouldn't matter and people should feel welcome.
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 4, 2007 4:21 UTC (Thu) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link] I also participate in some gun forums with exactly the same symptoms. In addition to incredibly rude comments about women, even when they are wives or girlfriends of other gunners, the right wing ones also tar all non-gunners as commies and pinkos. For some reason, the non-right wing gunners leave politics alone most of the time, just like tolerant hackers don't default to rude mode.
I suspect there are quite a few other areas with the same bigoted rude intolerance.
I do not understand it at all. Gunners sneer at liberals and refuse to recognize that by insulting all non-right wingers they are driving away their political allies. Misogynist hackers drive away women and non-misogynist men with their rude insults and then make jokes among themselves about hackers not knowing any women.
I wish they would all grow up and put their brains in gear long enough to put two and two together, but if wishes were fishes, the oceans wouldn't have room for water.
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 4, 2007 4:34 UTC (Thu) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link] Excellent post on the matter, sir. I think you summed up the problem quite nicely.
One would think that a community made up of a large number of people who have themselves been
The most important problem was omitted entirely - from article and you reasoning too Posted Oct 4, 2007 6:27 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] People who have themselves been rejected by and excluded from wider society, in many cases, at a young age, would be more tolerant and welcoming of people. The biggest question is: why should they ? They were ostracized and rejected for years - mostly because they lack the tact and ignore insignificant things like "manners". Finally, after many years, blood and tears they created place where they belong. Where they can be unapologetically "hostile to people who seem to be unwilling to think or to do their own homework before asking questions", where they can "tell exactly how you screwed up, possibly with colourful asides" and do it "in public". Now some newcomers want to destroy their "safe haven" and force them to welcome the very same "normal" people who have rejected them years ago and repeatedly reject them again and again. Why should they do this ? Why ? Who can guarantee that after more normal people will join geeks will not ostracized here, on their home turn and will not be expeled again ? Not to mention absorbing bad cultural messages. That's how the whole story of geekdom often starts, so it's not a coincidence... Women are just more social and so more often then not are "normal" people, not "geeks". FOSS communities don't just reject women specifically - they reject all normal people who are insisting on using manners and tact in conversations. Note that most older geeks can and do wear masks of "politeness" and "good manners" - when they are forced too. But the idea that they'll be forced to wear the same mask on the home turf Outrageous. As long as geeks perceive all these initiatives as yet-another-way-to-drive-them-from-home - we'll go nowhere. The people who drive women away are afraid, very afraid - they don't want to wear straitjacket and preventively fight against such horrible outcome. If we can not assuage their fears - it's all pointless.
The most important problem was omitted entirely - from article and you reasoning too Posted Oct 4, 2007 9:41 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] All I can say is that as someone who was rejected in exactly the way you describe, you do not speak for me. Not at all.
Being hostile to people simply is not a good thing, *no matter how badly we may ourselves have been treated in the past*, and especially not if you're being hostile to people who have not themselves been nasty to you at any time before.
The most important problem was omitted entirely - from article and you reasoning too Posted Oct 4, 2007 18:06 UTC (Thu) by rickmoen (subscriber, #6943) [Link] Please pardon the interjection:"khim's" quotation about hackers' tendency to be "hostile to people who seem to be unwilling to think or to do their own homework before asking questions" (taken from "How to Ask Questions the Smart Way") was one of my co-author Eric's, not one of mine, but if you read the surrounding passage, please note that "hostile" in this context denotes only either ignoring the question entirely or pointing out that it's poorly framed and unlikely to be fruitful. Resulting feedback to one's badly framed query may be blunt and brusque to the point that it seems rude (and, hey, in all honesty, it might also be rude), but it's almost always an interpretation error to read it as personal hostility. Rick Moen
The most important problem was omitted entirely - from article and you reasoning too Posted Oct 16, 2007 16:34 UTC (Tue) by einhverfr (guest, #44407) [Link] However, there is a difference between a comment like: "I don't know off the top of my head, but you might have better luck on the pgsql-perform list" and "The pgsql-perform is the right place for these queries. Next time, please review the list descriptions before deciding where to email your question." (In fairness to the PostgreSQL folks, their lists are the most helpful I have seen anywhere.) I have been on lists where there have been quite hostile people who throw personal attacks for no real reason (OSI's License-Discuss comes to mind). And in general what is missing is an involved list owner who is willing to take some of the work on shepharding the conversation (this doesn't mean heavy-handed moderation, just someone who people respect to remind people when they are outside the bounds of what is beneficial on the list).
The most important problem was omitted entirely - from article and you reasoning too Posted Oct 4, 2007 9:55 UTC (Thu) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] Free software communities reject all normal people who insist on manners and tact in conversations? WTF? Do you have any examples?
You can find samples in the other threads. Posted Oct 4, 2007 12:36 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] You only need few such guys in a mailing list to drive "normal" people away. Take a look on drobbins story is you want example. Ciaranm is technically brilliant jerk here - so Gentoo developers were not ready to send him away and continue without his help. Thus few "normal" people (if you even can call Daniel normal) were driven away. I'm not saying all FOSS developers have such ideas ingrained. But few (may be even very few - it does not matter) of them certainly do - and if others choose them over "normal" people (and that's quite often the case) then "normal" people (including women) will be driven away.
The most important problem was omitted entirely - from article and you reasoning too Posted Oct 4, 2007 11:16 UTC (Thu) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link] You mean well. Yet you shoot yourself in the foot squarely.
The article is about avoiding driving away participants by being flat-out rude, or whatever.
Then you go on grossly stereotyping a whole lot of people in a way that I personally find offensive. Mind you, I have *got* thick skin, so I'm not driven away by it. But I am annoyed.
You stereotype male OSS-participators as being "ostracized and rejected for years", a stereotype that never applied to all of us, indeed I strongly suspect it doesn't even apply for the majority.
You go on to compound that by claiming this is because we "lack tact" and "ignore manners". I don't recognize myself in either of these characterisations either, and suspect it's the kind of thing you -wouldn't- say to anyones face.
You then claim, indirectly, that FOSS communities generally "reject all normal people who are insisting on using manners and tact", another gross insult. I don't feel this fits even aproximately to most FOSS-communities I've been and are involved in, including Lwn.net. The debate here is a schoolbook example of tact and tone compared to, say, the debate on dagbladet.no one of the biggest online newspapers in norway...
As if that wasn't enough, you then go on to claim that in general, women are "more social". Did you ever consider that if it's sexist to make general statements *negative* towards women, then it's equally sexist to do the reverse ? If it's unacceptable and insulting to generally state that, for example, women are less technically competent, why is it then OK to state, like you just did, that men are less socially competent ?
I'm in favor of normal politeness in general (though not in favor of putting politeness above truth in general), but please, if that's what you're preaching: atleast consider following your own advice.
I wonder how it's possible to misread it so bad... Posted Oct 4, 2007 13:22 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] You stereotype male OSS-participators as being "ostracized and rejected for years", a stereotype that never applied to all of us, indeed I strongly suspect it doesn't even apply for the majority. Please explain to me where I've talked about majority of FOSS developers. I've explicitly talked about "people who have themselves been rejected by and excluded from wider society, in many cases, at a young age". And only about them. If you want full story... It applies to may be 3-5% of FOSS developers. May be even less. It's enough. It's more then enough. The story goes this way: You go on to compound that by claiming this is because we "lack tact" and "ignore manners". Yup. The people in question often lack tact and ignore manners. True. Again: where have I said that all people in FOSS lack tact and ignore manners ? I don't recognize myself in either of these characterisations either, and suspect it's the kind of thing you -wouldn't- say to anyones face. To the person who indeed lacks tact and ignore manners ? In a heartbeat. They will not understand any allegories. You then claim, indirectly, that FOSS communities generally "reject all normal people who are insisting on using manners and tact", another gross insult. It may be insult, but it's a fact. I do not say it's what FOSS communities are trying to do. It's the end result. Did you ever consider that if it's sexist to make general statements *negative* towards women, then it's equally sexist to do the reverse ? Is it sexist to agree with what women themselves say ? The women who are less social then average (rare as they are) are participating in FOSS already. If it's unacceptable and insulting to generally state that, for example, women are less technically competent, why is it then OK to state, like you just did, that men are less socially competent ? It's acceptable and not insulting to say the truth. Women are less technically competent in average and men are less socially competent in average. We can try to change this and make women more technically competent and men more socially competent and may be in the future situation will change, but right it's how things stay. I'm in favor of normal politeness in general (though not in favor of putting politeness above truth in general), but please, if that's what you're preaching: atleast consider following your own advice. Who said I preach this ? I just explain what all these "let's make FOSS communities more comfortable for women" campaigns lack. I myself is perfectly happy with current situation, but if we truly do want to bring more women in FOSS then "jerks in FOSS" (yup - including me) must be weeded out or reformed. And to achieve this "the silent majority" must decide that it'd worth it and act accordingly. Note that these "jerks from FOSS" include a lot of high-profile guys (like Linus and RMS) so it'll not be easy.
I wonder how it's possible to misread it so bad... Posted Oct 4, 2007 18:23 UTC (Thu) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link] There's a problem. If females in general avoided all areas where 3-5% ("maybe even less") of the people are rude or otherwise behave in a way that you don't approve of, then there wouldn't be many human areas where women can participate.
Going to the disco ? Nope. Odds are a minority of the people there will behave rudely somehow.
Working ? Nope. Odds are you'll experience rude people. In some jobs with rather a lot of women in them, you need to interact with rather a -lot- of rude people.
Team sports of any kind ? Nope. Odds are you'll be "driven away" there too.
Go on vacation to oh, say, italy ? No chance. You'll *certainly* suffer regular sexist remarks and stupid pickup attempts regularily.
Play in a band ? No chance in hell, are you dreaming ?
The women I know participate in all of these, and more though. So clearly, your map fails to match the actual terrain. If the bar for getting more women to participate is eradicating every last rude person, then frankly, that's not doable in any forum, certainly not one that is open and tolerant. You can do it if you're say dictator over a mailing-list, but that then tends to mean driving away the large majority of free-speech loving hackers (of which there are, frankly, more than there are female hackers)
I don't see jerks getting any more support in FLOSS communities than elsewhere. There's lots of VERY jerky people tolerated in team-sports for example, if they're good in sports.
It's not a "FACT" that FLOSS-communities in general have the effect you claim they have. Some may. Too many may, even. But there's a step from that (and a large one) to claiming they do in general.
There's a difference, by the way, between claiming that women/men are -on-the-average- more/less technically skilled and claiming that women/men are more/less technically skilled. The first only claims to deal with averages, the second is a general statement, and is -untrue- unless it fits for all women/men. (or atleast close)
In short -- I don't think your core idea: that the low female participation can be explained to a large degree trough having 3-5% ("maybe even less") of participants that are socially maladapted is sound. I don't think that even comes close to explaining anything.
I do agree it's a cultural thing, though. But it's the culture of the majority, in AND OUTSIDE of floss, not the work of a few isolated guys.
I also just plain don't see the claimed distinction between FLOSS communities and say professional software development. It's possible that part genuinely is different in the USA though.
Not just the trolls' fault Posted Oct 5, 2007 17:33 UTC (Fri) by wilck (subscriber, #29844) [Link] Very good point. Women are used to experience rudeness and sexism in almost every area of society. Whether or not that drives women away is a function of how attractive the activity itself is. Work, for example, isn't easy to avoid, and (using your example) discos attract more women than FLOSS forums.
I agree that rudeness itself is not the main problem. However, if someone is being rude, the reactions of the others matter a lot - it's good if many participants express their dissent. Otherwise, it's natural for the victim to interpret the silence as consent, and, consequently, feel attacked by the community as a whole.
What else? Besides the trolls, there's less evident sexism in the behavior of the majority of FLOSS participants. It's probably harder for female contributors to get appreciation for their work, and get respected as a hacker, not a woman in the first place.
Even that disregarded - it's possible that the resasons why people participate in our community simply don't appeal much to women.
Not just the trolls' fault Posted Oct 11, 2007 8:43 UTC (Thu) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] desire for the rewards the meritocracy has to offer One note here about women being "more social": This stereotype is only seeing one part of the picture. The stereotypical "social" woman tries to generate "harmony" in the society she's in. Problems are avoided, solutions tend to be compromises. Women prefer to share work equally, i.e. in a round-robin scheme, or everybody sits together and does the same thing. Our ape ancestors also have different hierarchies: Female apes have their position in the hierarchy by how long they have been in the group, and who was their mother. Female chimps can only raise in hierarchy when some upper female dies or is driven out of the group (female social monkeys regularly change groups, mostly at young age, for better genetic diversity, but they have to start at the bottom of the hierarchy ladder there). Male apes fight for their position in the hierarchy. Female chimps often do all they can to calm down these fights (by lousing the males), and sometimes, they reject the winner of a fight if he was to jerky. As a consequence, a meritocracy is something alien to women. The stereotypical "social" man lives in a different social system. His male society rewards fights, because you can change your position in hierarchy. Work is shared by dividing it into different portions - the typical male specialist teamwork. Territories are guarded and protected. This is all social behavior, but it's different from female social behavior. Now, these are all stereotypes, the human being is very adaptive, and can change behavior much more than chimps or macaques. However, when we talk about sexism, the allegedly typical "male" unsocial behavior (alleged by women) isn't unsocial. It's just not "female" social behavior, it's different. It has different tradeoffs, and needs different environments to work out. We see that how over time boys and girls have different success rates in coed school systems. Some decades ago, competitive behavior was rewarded, and boys were generally better. Now, being cooperate with the teacher is rewarded, and girls are generally better, while boys are perceived more as "troublemakers". In a mostly male environment, like FLOSS development, we see a lot of stereotypical male social behavior. People fight over things, people specialize, and fence their territories. If you want to have a case study, look at the staircase scheduler vs. CFS. Ingo is the territory owner (he wrote the O(1) scheduler). Con is an outsider. There are valid technical considerations why CFS got in finally, but during the years before CFS was written, the situation was quite different. Before, it was typical male ape (human jerk) social behavior. Regardless if this will attract more women or not: We ought to change that. Fencing territories is not the right thing to do in FLOSS. Specializing and dividing work into different portions is welcome. Competition is fine, dog-fights aren't. Social is what's adequate to the problems of a group. It's not always nature which gives us the most adequate social behavior - neither men nor women have the right social behavior for modern society in there genes. That's what we have our large brains for.
Not just the trolls' fault Posted Oct 16, 2007 4:34 UTC (Tue) by einhverfr (guest, #44407) [Link] A lot o your complaints really are aimed at a dictator model or similar model, You can see Linux kernel development as following an almost military structure (Linus as general, his Liutenants, etc. all the way down to the common foot-coder). Which is their choice. LedgerSMB (my main project) took a very different approach, based in part on the PostgreSQL community. We have a core development team (6 members) which make decisions about infrastructure, project direction, release milestones, etc. THen there is a larger number of people with commit access, and an even larger number of people who submit patches via Sourceforge. We are organized more like a Greek city-state than like an army. Although most areas of the core team have taken lead roles in various areas, some specialize more than others. One guy does mostly db stuff. Another guy has been a strong reference of Perl language, another member is a lead on application security, and I am the lead on accounting logic. Interestingy, only a few people really heavily specialize in a small area of the software and most people are involved in everything. I will point out a few things that should be obvious: 1) Territorial theories (about men being more territorial) are misapplied. Everyone will defend his/her territory, but men and women do this differently. 2) Everyone, men and women alike, want to feel like valued community members. Gender doesn't change that. 3) different people have different talents and may want to contribute differently. Anyway, I am looking heavily at questions of open source community management. I may start to put my findings together into a whitepaper of sorts.
Fundamentally disagree Posted Oct 16, 2007 4:07 UTC (Tue) by einhverfr (guest, #44407) [Link] First, the very fact that we are asking "why aren't there more women involved in FOSS" is a part of the problem. I may be male, but I hear a *common* complaint from women in FOSS that they are constantly asked that question. My grandmother was a physicist and she felt the same way. So by making an issue of it, we create a problem. Point 1: Don't let gender matter. A second point is that there are a *lot* of badly run FOSS projects out there (SQL-Ledger comes to mind...) where the main developer actively drives away would-be contributors because he (I don't know of any female cases off the top of my head) doesn't want competition. Point 2: Many equal, competent, and talented voices are better than one. Have a core community which debates, deliberates, and decides core project issues. If you must go with a dictatorship model, do what Linus did and stay away from commercial involvement. Finally, every piece of software lives or dies based on community. This community is three tiered: Core management, contributors and advocates, and users. Focus aggressively on building the community an make all contributors feel welcome. Point 3: Community is what matters most. Make the most of it. I seriously think that if we start looking at every individual as someone who can get involved and benefit both him/herself and the community by doing so, the question will become meaningless and it will correct itself.
Female jerks Posted Oct 6, 2007 10:41 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Not to speak about the possible existence of "female jerks" who have been rejected and ostracized by everyone, just as "male jerks"; and who are technically brilliant. Do they just not behave as "jerks" at all? Or are there subclasses of "jerks"?At my university I saw a lot of socially inept people (including me). We did not participate in social events while in high school, we did not get invited to parties, and yet we were not any more or less rude than the rest. We (men and women alike) were just worse at being social, something which has almost always been corrected in adult life.
I wonder how it's possible to misread it so bad... Posted Oct 16, 2007 4:47 UTC (Tue) by einhverfr (guest, #44407) [Link] With all due respect, I think that you grossly miss the point. In most communities, I have seen maybe 0.1-1% of users be obnoxious. The result of that has very little to do with how many obnoxious people you have on your forums and email lists, but rather what positons in the community they hold. If they are in positions of power, or are essentially attack dogs for those in power, they can do a *lot* of damage by driving away talent of both genders. If they are largely ignored by the community, or are generally reminded of manners, then they do very little damage (and may actually serve to provide a contrast showing how good the rest of the community is). Secondly, the howto you cite also tends to miss the point. As long as we try too hard to attract women in computing, and make a big deal out of it, we are going to have problems with inequality. The howto makes a number of points which are valid, but I think the overall premise is flawed. Basically (as a male) I think that the best way to encourage women in computing and FOSS, is to work primarily on the architectures of contribution and community in general so that all participants feel welcome and valued for what they contribute. This is a real challenge, but it is the oly way to address the real questions and callenges that this matter brings up.
The most important problem was omitted entirely - from article and you reasoning too Posted Oct 7, 2007 1:10 UTC (Sun) by malor (subscriber, #2973) [Link] You have become the people that rejected you; the abused have become the abusers.
The most important problem was omitted entirely - from article and you reasoning too Posted Oct 7, 2007 2:31 UTC (Sun) by dvdeug (subscriber, #10998) [Link] They were ostracized because they lacked manners? It's polite to beat up on people so many times that you have to beg your victim to downplay the incident so you don't get kicked out of school? (Yeah, that happened to me.) This illusion that those who were willing to fight for a high rung on the social ladder are somehow better behaved, more open to outsiders or more tactful is absurd. Fraternities, for example, are closed societies notorious for bad behavior, routinely drunkenness and sexual harassment, but up to and including assault, rape and manslaughter. And somehow not a geek to be seen...
The most important problem was omitted entirely - from article and you reasoning too Posted Oct 16, 2007 16:27 UTC (Tue) by einhverfr (guest, #44407) [Link] A couple of things: I think the more important the individual is in the community the more that public discussion over merits is important. For example, I have had various people tell me exactly what I did that was stupid in public (both by men and by women). Most of the time I listen, learn, and appreciate the honesty. This is especially true for communities where I have some sort of leadership position. However, for newcommers, I tend to go out of my way to provide guidance without being harsh. Usually comments like "this would be better asked on a different list" are followed by "here is a quick overview." I tend to do the same when directing people to the documentation (some people *have* looked in the documentation and don't know how to get answers from that-- and yes, sometimes it happens to me). Finally, there is such a thing as criticism overload. I have watched it happen to lots of people (men and women). Especially when you work with refavtoring *horrible* codebases, it happens. Look for it in yourself and watch for it in others.
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 4, 2007 5:21 UTC (Thu) by paulmfoster (subscriber, #17313) [Link] Here are some simple rules:
1. Don't say anything in email you wouldn't say in person. If someone would punch you out in person for saying something, perhaps you shouldn't say it in email.
2. Your conversations on the internet are *not* private. Even private email conversations can become public. Consider that every word you utter on the internet can be read by the whole world.
3. People should *not* have to develop "thicker skins" around you.
4. If you originate the communication, then you're to a greater or lesser degree responsible for the reaction on the other end.
5. If you really want to fight, become a pugilist.
6. Know when to shut up. It's not your job to correct every stupid utterance on the internet, and you don't *have* to respond to them.
7. Some people specialize in provoking other people. Don't take their bait.
8. You're not in the locker room on the internet. You're in the town square with directional microphones pointed at you from every corner. (See #2 above.)
9. Where possible, ignore personal attacks on you. Consider that they say more about the attacker than they say about you. (Develop a "thicker skin". ;-})
10. Consider the difference between written and spoken communication. In writing, you can't see the person's face or posture, and you can't adequately judge their real reaction the way you could in person.
11. Women are potentially as capable as men in most areas. It really depends on whether they're *interested* in an area or not.
This business of driving off women before they can fully join our community (or after they've joined) is a matter of *manners*. And I suspect that if people simply followed the above rules, we wouldn't have this problem.
Answers from postions of typical uber-geek Posted Oct 4, 2007 6:57 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Note: I'm not uber-geek, I just play devil's advocate. Just 1-2% of ubergeeks in community are enough to drive all women away, so we can not just ignore them. ----- 1. I never understood why people so often want to punch me - so I've stopped talking serious on public. The people from this mailing list will never punch me if I'll say what I write in my e-mails so I think I'm safe here. 2. See above: I know my conversations are not private, but the important people are seeing them anyway and the rest of the world are not important, so I just don't know what are you trying to say here. 3. Why not ? This my place and we play by my rules, on public I'm mostly silent so "general public" can do anything they want. 4. Other end is other end - I can not predict their reaction. If I said truth as I see it - what more can they want ? 5. I do not want to fight - other people have strange urge to fight me, but that's their problem, not mine. If they can accept the truth and can not prove that what I'm saying is false - what they are are trying to achieve anyway ? 6. It's not my job to correct all things on the internet, but if someone says some incorrect things on my turf - it's my responsibility. Stupid people must be corrected (and weed out if the need arises) or else pointless noise will drown all things here. 7. How will I know ? I see falsehood - I respond. Sometimes I don't have time and hope someone else will respond, but it rarely happens. I wonder why. 8. This is repeat of 2. above or does it have some new points ? 9. Good flamefest can be interesting mental challenge sometimes. It's not important but can be fun - I forget about it once the flames stops, but other people sometimes remember it for year... wonder why... 10. Huh ? There are a difference between written and spoken communication ? What are you talking about ? Do you talk about how some people's face becomes red before they start trying to punch me ? 11. If they are as capable - they can send patch, I'll happily accept it. Instead they are starting to talk about silly things like tact or manners. I just don't know how to shut them up. Why can not they say something useful for once ? ----- It's very true that it's all the question of *manners*, but sizable percentage of geeks feel that manners are useless waste of time or even worse: burden that hurts discussion by clouding issues. Before you'll try to explain to geeks how can they use tact you should explain to them why they should bother
Answers from postions of typical uber-geek Posted Oct 4, 2007 9:21 UTC (Thu) by sdalley (subscriber, #18550) [Link] O wad some Power the giftie gie usTo see oursels as ithers see us! It wad frae mony a blunder free us, An' foolish notion: What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, An' ev'n devotion!
Robert Burns
Answers from postions of typical uber-geek Posted Oct 4, 2007 13:43 UTC (Thu) by lysse (subscriber, #3190) [Link] > I'm not uber-geek, I just play devil's advocate
...you mean you troll...?
Answers from postions of typical uber-geek Posted Oct 4, 2007 16:25 UTC (Thu) by amikins (subscriber, #451) [Link] To be fair, it looks to me more like this individual isn't clear on the purpose of playing devil's advocate.
Devil's advocate is an attempt to advance understanding of a problem by presenting alternate points, as well-reasoned as possible. If the points aren't sufficiently well framed as to be able to usefully further discussion, then the goal isn't served.
Care must be taken when attempting to take on the devil's advocate role; if you aren't precise in how you present these views, you do in fact come across as a troll.
Answers from postions of typical uber-geek Posted Oct 20, 2007 1:01 UTC (Sat) by einhverfr (guest, #44407) [Link] I actually thought the points were well demonstrated. Not strictly devils advocate, more along the lines of what one might expect from, say, Jonathan Swift. I think the main issue however, is that it really does come down to community management. Some people "get it" and some don't.
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 4, 2007 12:40 UTC (Thu) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link] In summary: be mature.I daresay that a focus on maturity is the real challenge. Fretting about the plumbing of individuals in the free software community, in my opinion, is a distraction. In fact, if I was a proprietary vendor, I would view fanning these flames of fretting as yet another way to keep the free software community distracted and divided, a big strategic win.
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 4, 2007 13:47 UTC (Thu) by lysse (subscriber, #3190) [Link] > 11. Women are potentially as capable as men in most areas. It really depends on whether they're *interested* in an area or not.
10 or so years ago, that wouldn't even have had to be stated explicitly - it was a generally-held assumption. Have we regressed in the last decade?
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 4, 2007 20:07 UTC (Thu) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link] Yes, we have. The mass resurgence, on the global political scene, of ultra-reactionary fascist thinking has led to a commensurate erosion of respect for women, racial minorities, religious diversity, and in general everybody who is different from "the norm" in the country in question. It's especially bad right now in the US and in the Muslim world, but it's by no means confined to those places.
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 17, 2007 17:41 UTC (Wed) by einhverfr (guest, #44407) [Link] The simple solution is to find a way to show who has been overtaken by such thinking that serves nobody. I have found that most of the jerks who mismanage software communities are also sexist. The problem is not what we as a society have regressed to but rather the fact that we give some people way too much power. I think that someone to start rating open source communities in terms of things like how welcome women feel in the communities.
More on your points Posted Oct 17, 2007 3:57 UTC (Wed) by einhverfr (guest, #44407) [Link] Points 1, 2, 8, 9, and 10 often also come down to: Slow down. It is really easy to communicate unintended thing in email, so take your time, calm yourself, and communicate exactly what was intended. Furthermore don't be afraid to appologize when someone takes soemthing the wrong way or you are factually wrong. Point 3: I agree here with a major caveat. Project leaders should have thick skins and should demand often brutal honesty from community members. They should not, however, demand that community members have thick skins. Point 4: True to some extent or another. At the same time, the key is sympathy and compassion, not who is at fault. Somone could just blow up because he/she is having a bad day. People have to share responsibility for a conversation's outcome. On your last point, let me share my experience with LedgerSMB. We have never gone out of our way to recruit women. Yet, we have done what we can to promote an open community where people feel comfortable contributing. As a result, 1/3 of those with commit privelege are women (I am guessing that this may be more than most projects). How did this happen? Simple. We accepted contributions from them and they found they enjoyed working with us. No great mysteries here. I will say this though-- every one of our committers is a demanding, exacting individual with a strong emphasis in developing quality software. THere is no difference here between the men and women that I can attribute to gender (more of it seems to do with expertise than gender). We have had fights on private lists that are very intense, but are always generally respectful. I have watched this start to push away contributors from time to time but I am not sure if this is good or bad. On the positive side, the big issue tends to be whether people are willing to put in the effort to make their patches committable in a codebase that is both rapidly being developed and where it hasn;t changed yet, it is very brittle.
Jon, you forgot a link... Posted Oct 4, 2007 6:07 UTC (Thu) by kena (subscriber, #2735) [Link] http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/sextips/sexy.html
esr really does have a way about him, sometimes. I can't quite put my
Share and enjoy... I think not.
Jon, you forgot a link... Posted Oct 4, 2007 16:09 UTC (Thu) by evgeny (subscriber, #774) [Link] OK, while we're at that, let me have some math fun (or do some fun math?). When looking around Val Henson's page [1], I noticed a talk [2] "Women and the Culture of Free Software: A Study". Let's have a look at p.33. WITHIN the community, women get asked on a date about five times more than men. However, on p.3 we find that men outnumber women by a factor of 65 WITHIN the SAME community. What gives? That girls actually flirt ten times harder! ;-)
[1] <http://infohost.nmt.edu/~val/>
Jon, you forgot a link... Posted Oct 17, 2007 18:28 UTC (Wed) by einhverfr (guest, #44407) [Link] Val's material is well written an argued. And I think it applies to a large subset of Free Software. There are, however, a few points I would make (interestingly the gender division in LedgerSMB looks a lot more like Val's diagram of the proprietary software world, so I guess our project can be proud :-) ). 1: Dysfunctional communities should be abandoned anyway. We are not coding in dark rooms all alone. The community is a community and includes social aspects. We will all be more successful if we focus on that issue. 2: I suspect that there is also an OCD component to being a great hacker, and that societal issues may influence the target of the obsessions (cleanliness vs security vs math vs software engineering). THis is beyond what we can address as a community. 3: Our communities should be broader than the obsessive software engineering types. People should feel welcome to contribute in whatever way advances everyone.
Jon, you forgot a link... Posted Oct 4, 2007 20:47 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Well, most of that essay makes sense, although it's phrased in anexcessively analytical tone which some might take offence at. Given its target audience (geeks who shiver with fear at the thought of attracting women, or they wouldn't be reading the essay) it might actually be a good tone to take. (And yes, it's paternalistic, but again, in that essay in particular that sort of tone makes some sense.)
(But, my god, it starts badly. Intelligence *does* attract women. You just
(I was planning to pan it when I started, but then I think back to what I
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 4, 2007 8:15 UTC (Thu) by tv (subscriber, #32991) [Link] I was relieved when opening LWN to see this piece at the top of the front page. Thanks for running one of the highest quality publications on the net. This piece made me realize once again what how good LWN really is at putting things into proper perspective.
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 4, 2007 9:44 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Hear, hear. Jon's running this thing for a reason (well, other than having started it and being devoted to it past all sanity): he's *good at explaining things clearly*. Not just technical things, either, as this proves.
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 4, 2007 9:46 UTC (Thu) by stijn (subscriber, #570) [Link] Well said. At some point you use the word "unwelcoming". I find many parts of geekdom unwelcoming, regardless. There are many mailing lists, news groups and fora where there is a general trend of chestbeating, hipshooting, and worse. This puts people off in general. Of course, when male chauvinism is thrown in (and it happens) a problem is created that is specific to gender. Some people have made the point: it is our (little/big) club, join if you like. Do not expect us to change. That is to some extent a perfectly sane position. I find it lacking in ambition, both professionally and on a personal level.
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 4, 2007 9:50 UTC (Thu) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link] The article was great. A little side-track, but I'm also frustrated by the lack of non-technical messages coming from the free software world. The reason I like Ubuntu is not just the sleekness and polishness (Fedora and openSUSE do better in some/many ways, not least with the system configuration tools), but the fact that it's not just "hey whee source code to the latest kernel", but "we're building a more equal world where people help each other and do stuff for the common good". Plus the Code of Conduct that may come to rescue whenever someone is being an idiot on the forums / mailing lists.
That's also the biggest reason I think that "free/libre software" is somewhat better term than "open source" (I might think other wise if MS starts touting its "reference license" as "open source"). Open source is purely technical, and most people would be more interested in the freedoms free software gives them than the one fact that the source code is open. Of course for the technical of us, we mainly want the freedoms regarding the program itself, but I think there are much wider subjects that could be utilized in eg. marketing free software. Well, maybe someone will. Dell? Maybe marketing could even use new terms like "free computing", "libre tech"...
This is of course partly related to the topic, since statistically women are more interested in non-technical stuff. But not really related to the topic, since I wouldn't ever state this is the reason for the problem, since that would be concentrating on statistics / single aspects and missing the point.
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 4, 2007 11:54 UTC (Thu) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link] Can GPG be used by Mafia folks to hide their communications?
Are the authorities in Iran / North Korea / USA / $YOUR_WORST_ENEMY use Ubuntu to driver their servers? The ones in their War Office?
The answer to both quesition is: "yes".
An "open source" guy will tell you that if there are plenty of Mafia guys using GPG, they'll probably have their own modifications. And it will probably prove economical to them to have those modifications included in the main development tree of GPG.
Will you deny good code contributions just because the programmer working on them got paid by drug money? The code is there. Whether or not you want to lock up the coder.
Don't push politics to places it is not needed in.
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 4, 2007 13:55 UTC (Thu) by lysse (subscriber, #3190) [Link] Since comments cannot be edited after the fact here, I have to say that I cannot understand in the least how the post you made follows from the post you're replying to.
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 4, 2007 17:01 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] It's also notably odd, because the position he ascribes solely to open source people is strongly held by the free software world, as well. The `free software must be usable for all fields of endeavour' condition is considered critical by both (with the canonical example being using the stuff in the control software for baby-mulching machines).
Ubuntu and governance Posted Oct 5, 2007 18:19 UTC (Fri) by rickmoen (subscriber, #6943) [Link] tayjrink wrote:The reason I like Ubuntu is not just the sleekness and polishness (Fedora and openSUSE do better in some/many ways, not least with the system configuration tools), but the fact that it's not just "hey whee source code to the latest kernel", but "we're building a more equal world where people help each other and do stuff for the common good". Plus the Code of Conduct that may come to rescue whenever someone is being an idiot on the forums / mailing lists. There are actually two Codes of Conduct, the regular one and the leadership one. Both are vague feel-good suggestion lists, rather than the functional code of conduct that they purport to be. Is Ubuntu going to enforce the "Be collaborative" and "When you are unsure, ask for help" items from the regular code against members, e.g., lock someone out of an IRC channel for failing to be collaborative? As an actual code of conduct, i.e., a set of governing documents for participants, it's a joke. The relevant Web pages do allow one to discover the actual governing structure, if one disregards the fluff: Technical decisions are vouchsafed to a Technical Board, and member-conduct discipline to a Community Council. Both meet on IRC; neither is particularly transparent to the public (i.e., the public cannot readily track what their history of decision-making is, or their real process and criteria for doing so), for three reasons: 1. The IRC sessions are not logged and made available in the general case. 2. Members of both committees reserve the right to retreat to a private channel if in their judgement "an open meeting becomes too noisy". 3. It is likely that most of both groups' business occurs on their respective strictly private and confidential mailing lists. And who are the members of those groups? They are appointed by Mark Shuttleworth, confirmed by majority vote of the maintainers, and serve for one and two years respectively. To whom are they accountable? Nobody in particular. (I'm sure they're good people, and are not criticising them. I'm just pointing out the process.) The end-result is that Ubuntu has two private committees under the founder's proximate control that have roughly zero public transparency, one of which is fully empowered to restrict or ban Ubuntu participants without needing to explain themselves to anyone but each other. Anyone trying to find a reliable record of what they've done and why will be stymied by the surrounding information void. To the extent there's anything, there are just vague and, frankly, deceptive-in-context handwaves about the Ubuntu Code(s) of Conduct. Now, it's entirely possible if not likely that the end-results are mostly desirable, e.g., incorrigible personal flamers and posters of large amounts of offtopic drivel being exiled temporarily or permanently. However, the process is not (per above) particularly honest. Me, I prefer honest. Rick Moen
Ubuntu and governance Posted Oct 5, 2007 22:39 UTC (Fri) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] The IRC sessions are not logged and made available in the general casehttp://people.ubuntu.com/~fabbione/irclogs/ Members of both committees reserve the right to retreat to a private channel if in their judgement "an open meeting becomes too noisy" I'm not aware of this ever happening - it certainly hasn't for the technical board. In the event of an open meeting becoming too noisy, it'd be far more likely for us to moderate the channel and continue in public, before unmoderating the channel to allow for general feedback (I have a vague recollection of this happening at some stage) It is likely that most of both groups' business occurs on their respective strictly private and confidential mailing lists. It doesn't. The only issues generally discussed on the mailing list are either procedural (approving decisions made by other bodies) or private at external request (in the technical board case mostly upstream authors asking for decisions about their software). They are appointed by Mark Shuttleworth, confirmed by majority vote of the maintainers, and serve for one and two years respectively. It's true - Ubuntu isn't a democracy. I don't think we've ever tried to hide that. Nor do I think anyone could ever accuse Mark of always making good decisions. But that's not really the point. The structure of Ubuntu was designed precisely to avoid the issues that keep on arising in more democratic organisations like Debian, such as protracted arguments about what sort of social standards are acceptable or the precise meaning of the wording of a document written by someone who's left the project years ago or what if I were a lesbian amputee from Mars or whatever. We have bodies of people who are chosen on the basis of competence and agreement with the existing social and technological standards, with the explicit aim of ensuring that those same standards are perpetuated. This sort of arrangement certainly isn't for everybody, and I'm certainly not going to try to convince you that you're wrong about Ubuntu. I'm just interested in clarifying why we have this set of arrangements. The end-result is that Ubuntu has two private committees under the founder's proximate control that have roughly zero public transparency, one of which is fully empowered to restrict or ban Ubuntu participants without needing to explain themselves to anyone but each other. While that's certainly theoretically true, I suspect that it would never happen. If we're unable to explain precisely why someone was excluded, the community would be asking serious questions. On the one hand, the large scale community involvement with Ubuntu aids the distribution by producing huge quantities of free advertising - on the other hand, they also provide a very public counterreaction if we fuck up. So really, we're left with the case where someone gets thrown out, there's an inadequate explanation and the community doesn't care. That kind of suggests it was the right decision, though the lack of explanation would be justifiably criticised. Is Ubuntu going to enforce the "Be collaborative" and "When you are unsure, ask for help" items from the regular code against members, e.g., lock someone out of an IRC channel for failing to be collaborative? But to answer your original question - if someone's long-term failure to be collaborative or ask for help results in them adversely affecting other people's attempts to contribute, even after requests for them to modify their behaviour, then yes, they'll probably be expelled from the project. The slightly handwavy attitude of the code of conduct is deliberate. We don't want to attempt to strictly codify behaviour, because doing so just encourages people to try to find loopholes - see the constant gamesmanship applied to the OSD, for instace ("Oh, but this clearly actually means this, so it's fine if we require you to urinate on your chair every time you want to run the software!") In an ideal world, the code of conduct would be something along the lines of "Behave sensibly". It ended up containing some broad guidelines to give people a better idea of what we think "sensible" is. However, the process is not (per above) particularly honest. Me, I prefer honest. While I know that I said I wasn't trying to convince you that Ubuntu isn't evil or anything, I think it's worth me mentioning this. I know most of the people involved in the Ubuntu governance structure fairly well, both at a professional and personal level. I trust them to make correct decisions. However, if anyone sees anything that could be construed as misappropriate happening in the decision making process, feel free to get in touch with me. If I'm not able to provide a decent answer about what's happened, then I'll happily resign - at that point, it'll be fairly clear that my standards don't match those of the rest of the distribution.
Ubuntu and governance Posted Oct 10, 2007 21:43 UTC (Wed) by rickmoen (subscriber, #6943) [Link] mjg59 wrote:http://people.ubuntu.com/~fabbione/irclogs/ Good for Fabio M. Di Nitto. However, (1) people looking for logs at the obvious places aren't going to find them there, (2) the appear (per URL) to be an individuals, rather than an official offering of the committee's, (3) other people have no idea whether they're complete and accurately represent what occurred, and (4) even if Fabio does manage to log everything on an ongoing basis, for other reasons described (private channel and mailing list), they might well not capture the discussions generally of interest, anyway. I'm not aware of this ever happening Irrelevant to the point. It doesn't. When I said "most", I of course meant "most significant". The provision for as-needed resort to explicitly private and explicitly confidential discussion tends to speak for itself. I'm not in any way criticising the Ubuntu Project for having such mechanisms. I'm merely saying that these and the other things described are the real mechanisms for implementing conduct discipline, and that the Code(s) of Conduct is (are) not substantially relevant to process. It's true - Ubuntu isn't a democracy.[...] Again, I voiced no criticism. Ubuntu Project does not need to justify its organisational form. Again, I merely detailed what is real, in the area of conduct enforcement, and what is not. I'm certainly not going to try to convince you that you're wrong about Ubuntu. Actually, if my description is inaccurate, please do feel welcome to clarify. However, you should probably start by re-reading what I wrote, since obviously you inferred in error that I was criticising the Ubuntu Project's core nature, in which reading you erred, badly. You basically ignored the substance of my post completely, and responded with a completely irrelevant non-response about Ubuntu Project's reasons for its organisational form. This is mildly vexing, because I was, I think, rather clear in my earlier post, so I infer that you must not have tried very hard to read before posting. But to answer your original question - if someone's long-term failure to be collaborative or ask for help results in them adversely affecting other people's attempts to contribute, even after requests for them to modify their behaviour, then yes, they'll probably be expelled from the project. I'm somewhat embarrassed, and saddened, to have to report this news: The question was 100% rhetorical. It is an evident absurdity to seriously maintain that an open-source project's conduct rules actually require that participants "Be collaborative" and "When you are unsure, ask for help", and that disciplinary proceedings leading to sanctions up to and including expulsion can result from detected violations. If you are honestly saying that you cannot figure out why, then I fear we have no basis for discussion. While I know that I said I wasn't trying to convince you that Ubuntu isn't evil or anything, Again, you have very badly misread, if you inferred that I was saying that Ubuntu Project or anyone else is "evil" or any other such characterisation. ...free to get in touch with me... That might be more likely if you would let people know who you are, and give some clue concerning your relationship, if any, to the Ubuntu Project. Rick Moen
Ubuntu and governance Posted Oct 10, 2007 22:46 UTC (Wed) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] Google has little difficulty in finding a link to the IRC logs, but you're right that it wasn't obviously linked from any of the official documentation. I've rectified that.I'm merely saying that these and the other things described are the real mechanisms for implementing conduct discipline, and that the Code(s) of Conduct is (are) not substantially relevant to process Which isn't the case at all. When any issues have arisen they've been discussed publically. We don't hold court on private mailing lists or in IRC backchannels. Except in cases where the participants have explicitly requested that discussions take place in private, every decision of any note whatsoever has taken place in public and been (where relevant) judged against the code of conduct. Actually, if my description is inaccurate, please do feel welcome to clarify You were wrong about the lack of IRC logs, the forums where decisions actually end up getting made, the lack of transparency, the lack of a reliable record and the lack of honesty. Personally, I'd tend to interpret a claim that a process lacks honesty as a criticism of said process - accusations of dishonesty are a fairly common source of libel suits. evident absurdity Whether you feel it to be absurd or not, it remains true. People who do not act in a manner conducive to the development of a collaborative project are not welcome in the Ubuntu project. if you would let people know who you are Google gives a fairly good overview, but relevantly I've been a member of the Ubuntu technical board for just under two years now. For most of that time I've had no financial relationship with Canonical, though in the interests of disclosure I'm currently halfway through a three month contract with them.
Ubuntu and governance Posted Oct 11, 2007 5:01 UTC (Thu) by rickmoen (subscriber, #6943) [Link] I'm afraid I really must demur, again.mjg59 wrote: Google has little difficulty in finding a link to the IRC logs Irrelevant to the point as stated. Which isn't the case at all. But it is. Once again, your denial ignores the substance of what I said, and professes to refute some assertion I did not, in fact, make. You can, if you wish, read what I actually wrote -- or you're perfectly welcome to continue to ignore it. Fine with me, either way. You were wrong about the lack of IRC logs Excuse me, but here I am having an increasingly difficult time extending the spirit of charity, and continuing to assume you are merely having reading-comprehension problems, rather than deliberately misstating. I nowhere claimed IRC logs didn't exist at all. What I said -- and you have had ample opportunity to see it in plain ASCII -- is that "The IRC sessions are not logged and made available in the general case." The meaning was perfectly clear: People would not find them in any of the expected place, nor if they found them would have any reasonable assurance of them being accurate and complete. If by some rather improbable chance the point wasn't obvious from my initial post, it certainly should have been in the detailed followup that spelled it out explicitly. In any event, the hyperlink you've now supplied to http://people.ubuntu.com/~fabbione/irclogs/ (for which, thanks, by the way) purports to cover meetings of the Technical Board -- but the ones that would be relevant to member-conduct discipline would be those of the Community Council. So, your wiki edit to http://www.ubuntulinux.org/community/processes/techboard, though appreciated, is mostly irrelevant to the preceding discussion. (By the way, as a point of interest, which files inside your irclogs directory are those of the Technical Committee? Looking for, e.g., the string "tech" turned up nothing.) the forums where decisions actually end up getting made Nothing you said has claimed that decisions don't get made based on those discussions -- and, frankly, it would be very strange for them not to. Why else have private and confidential discussions, other than to help reach conclusions on delicate matters? the lack of transparency To the contrary, I showed that lack of transparency; you have merely talked around it. (Again, the gesture concerning Technical Committee IRC logs -- which I assume must be somewhere in there, is an appreciated exception, but came after my post, which, I hope you realise, illustrates the point.) the lack of a reliable record The precise wording was "Anyone trying to find a reliable record of what they've done and why will be stymied by the surrounding information void." You seem to have conceded this point, in allowing that, yes, there was nowhere on the Technical Committee pages, let alone the much more relevant Community Council ones, that lets one find relevant records -- and that, actually, there are no such records within those groups' pages at all. I don't consider this worth harping on, merely worth noting once and moving on. I would appreciate doing that now, and not be obliged to restate that simple point yet again, just because you don't get it. Google gives a fairly good overview, A more prosaic and less convoluted reply might have been "Oh, good point. I'm Matthew Garrett, member of the Ubuntu Technical Board and Ubuntu Kernel Team" [and whatever else might be relevant]. Your world timeline may differ, but in mine, LWN nicks just aren't really useful (in the general case) as identifiers of one's person and affiliations. Personally, I'd tend to interpret a claim that a process lacks honesty as a criticism of said process - accusations of dishonesty are a fairly common source of libel suits. Are you actually threatening me with a libel lawsuit, Mr. Matthew J. Garrett? If you wish to confirm that, I will be glad to provide you with contact information for my attorney, for service of process -- but our conversation will necessarily conclude at that point. Before you do, however, I'll point out -- once again -- what I actually said. Quoting: "Now, it's entirely possible if not likely that the end-results are mostly desirable, e.g., incorrigible personal flamers and posters of large amounts of offtopic drivel being exiled temporarily or permanently. However, the process is not (per above) particularly honest. Me, I prefer honest." I did not impute personal dishonesty to you, or to Mark Shuttleworth, or to Canonical, Ltd. I said it appeared to me that the process was dishonest, e.g., in asserting that project governance is run by straightforward application of the Code(s) of Conduct, when self-evidently that cannot be the case, because those two Codes are nothing at all like functional governance documents. For what it's worth, I am glad to say that I very much doubt you're in any way dishonest -- a hothead who doesn't bother to read attentively, absolutely, and who really should edit his posts a lot more carefully before sounding off in public, but I have no reason whatsoever to cast aspersions on your honesty. If and when you speak to your own attorney, by the way, please make sure to ask him whether a "process" (of, e.g., a Linux community project) has standing to bring libel litigation in court. The question will absolutely make his day. Rick Moen
Ubuntu and governance Posted Oct 11, 2007 6:39 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] Now, to a large extent I really don't want to get involved in this. It exemplifies precisely the style of discussion that I think is responsible for driving people away from open source communities. It's entirely needlessly hostile.Are you actually threatening me with a libel lawsuit No, of course not. I was attempting to illustrate my point that dishonesty would generally be regarded as a criticism, in response to your suggestion that you hadn't criticised the form of Ubuntu's governance. As you point out, suggesting that a process could be libelled is laughable. My apologies for any lack of clarity in that respect. "The IRC sessions are not logged and made available in the general case." They are logged. They are made available. You made an entirely justifiable criticism that it was not trivially obvious that they were made available, and I've attempted to rectify that (you're right about the Community Council logs being more interesting. The failure to link to those was an oversight on my part, and I've fixed it), but that doesn't alter the fact that anyone putting in any moderate amount of effort could find them - especially since they're linked from the wiki page entitled Meeting Logs, along with links to cleaned up versions (I'd assumed that you'd prefer the entirely unedited forms). If by "not made available in the general case" you meant "are slightly difficult to find" then I'd be forced to agree, but I think that's a slightly odd definition. Why else have private and confidential discussions, other than to help reach conclusions on delicate matters? As briefly outlined before:
those two Codes are nothing at all like functional governance documents Now, I have to say that I'm confused. We're clearly using different definitions of either "functional" or "governance" here, but it's not clear to me whether this is a cultural or technical misunderstanding. When comparing the Ubuntu Code of Conduct to, say, the Apache Corporation Code of Business Conduct, the differences appear to be in areas of coverage (hardly surprising) and the somewhat more general tone of the Ubuntu document. Both cover sets of acceptable behaviour. Both specify the body with responsibility for interpretation and enforcement. Both are designed to cover situations other than those explicitly enumerated within the document. With the exception of the reduced level of precision in the Ubuntu document, I can't determine any significant functional difference. The Ubuntu CoC is not intended to be a legal document or something that can be mechanically interpreted - it's a statement of what classes of behaviour will and will not be tolerated within the project community, and it has (and, I expect, will) been used to determine whether to exclude people from parts of the project where they fail to meet those expected levels of behaviour. In that respect, it's functional and it defines a certain level of governance.
Ubuntu and governance Posted Oct 18, 2007 5:48 UTC (Thu) by einhverfr (guest, #44407) [Link] I am afraid that if my experience of Rick is typical that he is both needlessly hostile and actively seeks to drive people he disagrees with away. I would point out one additional point that should be made. I don't generally find the "benevolant dictatorship" model to work for open soruce projects. Everyone wants to be that benevolant dictatorship but very few succeed...... At the same time, one needs only to look at the politics involve in Debian to see that democracy as such is not a great option either. The best system (which I believe that PostgreSQL, LedgerSMB, and Ubuntu share) is that of the non-representative (or meritocratic) republic. Who cares what everyone says, the core team does what is right for the project, and is structured to minimize the impact of conflicts of interest. You get the benefits of a dictatorship (freedom to do what is best for the project with a minimum of unnecessary politics) with some of the safeguards of a democracy.
Ubuntu and governance Posted Oct 11, 2007 21:57 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Good grief. Stop drinking the coffee, *really*. You're acting as if Mattis some sort of emissary of Satan.
People might treat you more nicely if you stopped reading everything they
Ubuntu and governance Posted Oct 13, 2007 2:18 UTC (Sat) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link] > The slightly handwavy attitude of> the code of conduct is deliberate.
I'm not sure if this is what Rick is/was after, but as I've often put it,
An example of routinely broken written rules is unionized work slowdowns.
It doesn't matter the organization. I've seen it all over, government,
On the logging, I'm inclined to agree with you. They could have been
OTOH, the existence of private channels, while convenient and as you
As for why lawyers were even mentioned, ugh. An (I believe) intended
Duncan
Ubuntu and governance Posted Oct 18, 2007 5:39 UTC (Thu) by einhverfr (guest, #44407) [Link] I am not an Ubuntu user, but LedgerSMB adopted the Ubuntu Code of Conduct early in its life (over a year ago). WHile I don't know how Ubuntu governance works, or how well it works, I will say that these codes of conduct have been helpful primarily because it provides a generic reference to the request to behave. In general, our core team has not been as transparent as it could be, but that has changed. There are times and places where transparency is not appropriate (for example, in responding to security reports), and it has taken some time to sort out what works and what doesn't. But in general, this is a good thing. BTW, in our first year, we only had to remind one person to follow the code of conduct once. I think what you are missing, Rick, is that you want a code of conduct to flexibly embody a set of principles and ask people who are outside any specific conflicts to decide whether to issue a public warning based on moving away from those principles. (This distinction is important. If someone personaly attacks me, I won't bring up the code of conduct-- I will let others on the core team do that. This avoids the perception of a conflict of interest or hiding behind the rules when it is convenient.)
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 4, 2007 11:00 UTC (Thu) by modernjazz (subscriber, #4185) [Link] Thanks for yet another great article.
One feature of discussion on this topic that I find particularly
As an example, imagine talking about filesystems to "a woman." The
In contrast, community-building, respectfulness, and behavior are matters
Feministing Posted Oct 4, 2007 11:02 UTC (Thu) by gouyou (subscriber, #30290) [Link] When certain Linux publications run overtly demeaning ads What I really love, are the advertisements run by the website: "Beautiful Belarus Girl", "Find Sexy Woman Here." and so on, you gotta love google's adsense algorithms :)
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 4, 2007 12:51 UTC (Thu) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link] Nice article.
Though I don't agree with some of your assumptions and conclusions:
1. Ads:
Adds in the technical area are no worse in that sense than sexist ads in practically any other field. They also sell (or otherwise probably owuldn't be used: those adds do cost money). Do adds in similar areas prevent women from joining in?
Actually I believe that someone pointed out that the rate of women in the general computer sciense "business" (the data was, IIRC, for general employment for CS-related jobs in the US at 2001) substaintially hier than the rate of women in free software projects (The relevant data were from a research done in europe in recent years).
So aparantly those ads don't keep women form propritary software companies.
2. Missing the reasons
There are various reasons why most of the people with the relevant talents ("skilled developers, writers, artists, project managers, and so on") don't stay in "the community". In fact, most people don't. Why don't them?
Rudness can only account for a small fraction of that. What attracts people in the first place? What rewards them to keep going? Just trying to fix one specific point without being aware of greater factors is just curing a symptom.
The problem is not exactly that talented people found our community welcoming and went away". The problem is that talented people have not found our community welcoming enough, or have not enjoyed enough spending the time there.
And thus we get to:
3. "What have nothing to lose"
> making it clear that a certain level of polite and respectful
Maybe it will make it less fun for a large proprtion of the current contributors? What have we gained then?
There are some not so nice sides to politically correctness can also kill discussions.
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 4, 2007 13:16 UTC (Thu) by kfiles (subscriber, #11628) [Link] Perhaps what's needed most is to get more interested women to subscribe to LWN, so that they can see that (mostly) reasonable discussions *can* occur among geeks. If they're hanging out on LKML and Slashdot, they may not be aware of this fact.
:)
--kirby
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 5, 2007 22:51 UTC (Fri) by barbara (subscriber, #3014) [Link] >Perhaps what's needed most is to get more interested women to subscribeto LWN, so that they can see that (mostly) reasonable discussions *can* occur among geeks. If they're hanging out on LKML and Slashdot, they may not be aware of this fact.
I find the discussions on LWN *most* of the time are good. They're
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 13, 2007 2:37 UTC (Sat) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link] Another LWN/LXer/Slashdot user here. =8^)
I agree in general, but I've found /. tolerable with the appropriate
Duncan
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 4, 2007 15:56 UTC (Thu) by tuxchick (guest, #42009) [Link] Excellent article, thank you Jonathan. You cut through the rubbish and got right to the heart of the issues.
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 4, 2007 16:00 UTC (Thu) by johnkarp (subscriber, #39285) [Link] I think it might do some good for various 'community leaders', e.g. Linus,Stallman, Shuttleworth, etc. to state publically that they don't appreciate disrespectful remarks, or at least those based solely on gender. Because I have a feeling that the people who send the death threats, etc. view themselves as 'protectors' or 'guardians' of their community or somesuch, and these leaders would be some of the few people they might pay attention to.
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 4, 2007 21:56 UTC (Thu) by sflintham (subscriber, #47422) [Link] I can't help thinking women are really a bit of a red herring here. My take on this (disclaimer: I am not actively involved in any kind of free software development, I based this on general lurking) is:
- a lot of mailing lists etc are hostile environments in general
I think the women angle boils down to:
Not sure this is as well reasoned as it could be, but I felt I had to say something...
Yet another male perspective on women in free software Posted Oct 5, 2007 1:17 UTC (Fri) by nlucas (subscriber, #33793) [Link] +1
Not a big secret, but one of those indisputable truths many forget: people (whatever sex) stay where they feel good at.
A rude environment will only attract other rude enough people. The fact women percentage is lower than in the corporative world is just obvious because woman culture doesn't favor the "rude" type.
Yet another male perspective on women in free software | |||||||||||