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Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really??Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really??Posted Aug 27, 2009 10:13 UTC (Thu) by njs (guest, #40338)In reply to: Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? by BrucePerens Parent article: FSF to host a mini-summit on Women in Free Software
Well, obviously I cannot satisfy that request myself. Perhaps someone with the required chromosomes will chime in. In the mean time, though, can I point something out that you may not have considered? In FOSS, there are about 60 men for every 1 woman. Imagine that that one woman sees problems, and is trying to speak out about them. And suppose that -- as we see in these threads -- they can write dozens of comments to one man and yet fail to communicate those problems. Now multiply that by 60, and realize that's unasked-for work piled on top of, you know, actually hacking. Many women in FOSS do make heroic efforts to communicate what they see -- they form organizations like LinuxChix, Debian Women, they write essays, give keynotes, found blogs, curate wikis, etc. But those aren't what you want. You asking one of them to take the time to explain things to you personally. And after they do that, honestly, it also sounds like if you don't find their explanation sufficiently complete with regard to mechanism, with I don't know, charts and lists of people who never became hackers and circles and arrows on the back, then you reserve the right to ignore them and continue blithely on talking about how it's a shame women just don't have passion for programming. If someone posted a demand on some random mailing list, "I'm not going to believe that Bruce really thinks <...>, unless he shows up here and tells me so himself, and in *full detail*", what would you think of that person? You're an old school hacker, community leader, prominent person. It's easy to assume that with all that expertise and experience, if you can't see a problem then oh well, there must not *be* a problem. Please consider the alternative possibility that you are a good person, have the best of intentions, and also a big of unconsidered privilege that is making you part of the problem. Here are some quotes to start with:
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Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 17:30 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
FWIW, this is *exactly* why I haven't dived into this thread until now.
Bruce, I started using Linux in 1993 with slackware installed off a stack of floppies. I ran X with fvwm and kermit for dialup Internet. I learnt Perl a couple of years later and have worked professionally and full time with Open Source (mostly LAMP stack) since 1996. I've done all-nighters and adrenaline-fuelled hacking runs and totally fscked my PC with broken kernel recompiles. I have founded user groups, hosted mailing lists, launched open source projects, etc. I have contributed to major and minor projects all over the damn place; I regularly get email thanking me for writing one of the best known Perl manpages. I have spoken at conferences all over the world. I am well known by certain segments of USENET, IRC, and mailing lists, and geeks all over the world recognise my name when I travel; friends of mine threaten to get tshirts printed saying "Yes, I know Skud" because of this. I have been chewing people's ears off about why open source/free software is awesome and world-changing since I was 18 years old. And most of the above information is readily available online. About half the first page of Google results (from where I'm sitting right now) for "women in open source" mention me.
Recently, I have also been documenting issues that women face in open source, linking and discussing and synthesising and summarising and KEYNOTING OSCON. (I started doing this a bit in 1998, but stepped back from it for a while, so most of my women-in-open-source work is more recent.)
And then I look at this thread and see that a) "women are just less passionate about open source than men" and b) that nobody seems to believe us when we say there is a problem.
Fuck that. Follow some of those funny little blue underlined words and DO SOME READING.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 19:02 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] OK, I'm going to guess that you might be Yuwei Lin, and that you are a woman.In lin3_gender, there is discussion of a text-based environment as somehow more gendering. And the causes given are 1) perhaps they've had less IT training in general, 2) schools aren't teaching those environments, and 3) there is more reliance on externalized memory, but you're not implying that women are poorer at externalized memory. All of this seems to imply a nurture-based bias in early-to-middle education. And I'm very willing to believe in such a bias, but it's not Free Software's fault! Regarding why textual environments are seen to connote more expertise, rather than being a simple preference, it is true in many fields that the person who can function in a less supportive environment is seen as expert. It is also possibly the case that to those males with sensory-motor integration disfunction (I am a sufferer or ex-sufferer and anecdotal evidence is that such is common in technically-oriented males), a textual environment is definitely more comfortable. But I don't yet see the support for this as a female weakness rather than a male deficit. So, I agree that a more supportive environment for women is desirable. This is in part social and maybe part technical. I think you would need good experiments to support your theory that some software is inherently less supportive of women, and you don't have those experiments yet, and I'm still dubious. You don't seem to disagree with the early education differences, as far as I can follow. I feel this is where the most progress can be made. Unfortunately, it takes a generation to pay off. There is still the nature aspect. You narrate your own passion as an argument against this, but isn't there some chance that you are an outlier?
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 19:11 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
Bruce, I am Kirrily Robert, as a *trivial* search would have told you, if we hadn't met in person on multiple occasions.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 19:43 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Oh, sorry. I just went by who came up in the first half page of google searches for women in Open Source. Lyn comes up first here. I am dubious about some of her science.So, going from your content instead of Lyn's, I would guess that you feel women in Free Software are marginalised, uncomfortable because you are seen as sexual objects, and excluded. Marginalization is to some extent a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is cured by the presence of enough women that they can't be ignored. Certainly we can help by being more welcoming, but unfortunately the greatest load is on the women who choose to be pathfinders. Believe it or not (and no snide comments please) I have had women in the workplace make me uncomfortable because they treated me as a sexual object. And I've been treated that way by a gay man too. I agree this is more of a problem for women, but you aren't alone. Also, I suspect some of the problem with actions of men in our field how strongly they have been effected by a lack of approachable women who are interested in the things they are. That will improve over time. The college program where I reported there was one woman is doing better now. And excluded. I do notice that in-groups of any kind tend to exclude outsiders - regardless of sex. I've seen this most powerfully in a group of railroad motorcar enthusiasts who very strongly excluded interested people who did not yet own a "speeder". Is this so very different from RMS' own problems into fitting into a society that - in the large - does not accept and understand him, and which he can not understand? I don't think so. But having been in another group that tries very consciously to attract women (we even make commercials about it! http://www.arrl.org/pio/ARRL709D.mp3), I am still not seeing that all of the issues are under our control. We still have a nature or nurture problem - either early childhood education or hard-coded gender issues. Of course, these have outliers.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 19:55 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
If the early-childhood-education thing was the only issue, about 1/4 of FOSS devs would be women...just like in commercial software. Instead, 3/200 are women. Something's wrong internally too.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:29 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Yes. But I suggest that this is not primarily an issue of free software, but of what women choose to do with their free time.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:09 UTC (Thu) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link]
> http://www.arrl.org/pio/ARRL709D.mp3
I can't even begin to imagine why that's not working for you....
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 21:29 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Believe it or not (and no snide comments please) I have had women in the workplace make me uncomfortable because they treated me as a sexual object.Look up 'derailment'. This is an absolutely classic example. Men being treated as sexual objects is both rare and pretty much without consequences. The same is emphatically not true of that treatment of women.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:56 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] So, you don't believe me and you discount that I could have consequences. This is just what the women are complaining about.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:17 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
It's the difference between "it happens" and "it's a systemic problem." Yes, men get sexually harassed sometimes. Women get sexually harassed all the time.
Bringing a guy with you when you go to tech conferences usually helps. Then it's clear that someone else has already called dibs. But it doesn't always work. Sometimes it just results in inappropriate things being directed at you both. Obviously my partner will not disagree with me on a technical topic because then "he won't get any tonight," according to a fellow developer (note: this is utter bull. he is quite ready to correct me on any technical matter where he has more expertise...which is most of them, since he's been at this since I was in elementary school).
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 20:34 UTC (Fri) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link]
Sometimes bringing a dude with you also results in a guy you were having perfectly interesting literally stopping mid-sentence and walking away from the conversation when he realizes that you're "with" the person standing next to you. No jokes. Happened to me at the first con I ever attended (Fifth HOPE).
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 19:07 UTC (Fri) by eon (guest, #60489) [Link]
This comment has pissed me off more than *anything* in this discussion:
>Believe it or not (and no snide comments please) I have had women in the workplace make me uncomfortable because they treated me as a sexual object. And I've been treated that way by a gay man too. I agree this is more of a problem for women, but you aren't alone.
Dude! really you haven't a clue what women have to deal with! Not a freakin' clue. I can not forget that I may be a target, on the street, at work, at the doctors office. And while you may feel "uncomfortable" I have to worry about rape. Dude, unless yr in prison or some other extreme situation you don't have to think about rape. You just don't. As women we modify everything & weigh the risks at all times. It's part of city life. And yea, I had a male, *MARRIED* co-worker who went out for drinks with other co-workers & told them he was gonna kidnap & rape me cause I was unavailable to him. I left that job.
And dude, I'm sooo not hitting on you cause I look you in the eyes while I talk to you. I'm not hitting on you cause I appreciate the cool things yr doing in tech. I'm just not hitting on you. So get a grip, be polite & treat me like the rest of the guys.
Don't trivialize the violence women have to deal with. It makes you look stupid.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 19:20 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] I do not mean to trivialize what you go through in any way, but to indicate that I understand and have sympathy.The main thing that I go through is other's perception that I am physically or emotionally intimidating. And once in a while I've made women scream through no intention of mine. I guess this is the opposite of what is happening to you, but be assured that it gets old.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Sep 22, 2009 15:12 UTC (Tue) by Lefty (guest, #51528) [Link] I do not mean to trivialize what you go through in any way... You'd be well-advised to stop doing it, that being the case.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 29, 2009 12:05 UTC (Sat) by omnot (guest, #60509) [Link]
Bruce, regarding your belief that the dearth of women participating in open source is primarily due to lack of interest or aptitude, I'd like you to come for a thought with me.
You say that you have had women and gay men cause you to feel uncomfortable in the workplace. I ask that you use that experience to conduct a thought experiment:
Imagine that your industry has 98% female participation. These are the women who made you feel uncomfortable only, on average, they are stronger, more arrogant and more notoriously horny than you are comfortable with.
Imagine that of those 98% 4% are overtly misogynistic and hostile, loudly mocking of your contribution, males in general and you, personally. Only a few of the other women ever spontaneously chide them and ask that you be treated fairly. 80% of the women don't even notice the bad behaviour.
Imagine also that your overall impression is that about half of the women you have ever worked with (still the mooted 98% of all workmates ever) have been overheard making casually derogatory remarks about the sexual proclivities of men -- specific and general -- and some of those comments have been made about you, personally. Your objections are dismissed as irrational: you should be a "good sport".
Sexually explicit questions are routinely asked of you directly, by women you are trying to work with, in any form of media with which you communicate. Some of the women are unnervingly creepy and persistent, and get disturbingly hostile when you do not respond as they would wish.
Imagine that suggestive to semi-pornographic images of impossibly handsome men, and lewd "clever" captions are used widely to promote the product you are working on. Imagine that when you suggest that the imagery is not cool, your teammates tease you, deride you, ostracize you and talk about how uptight you are behind your back.
Imagine that whenever you arrive at an industry conference some harried organiser snaps "Deliveries around the back". Once they let you in, a few people will ask you who your partner is (you must be accompanying a woman because men don't work in the industry), and almost everyone who does not ask makes that same assumption.
Imagine that walking into the conference involves wondering which of the women there -- women you are not attracted to, do not know and only wish to interact with on a professional level -- are the 4% who have nothing but contempt for men. Who are the 50% who see men in your industry as a bit of a joke? And who among them are going to try hitting on you over the course of the conference? And, when you decline their unwelcome and inappropriate advances, will they graciously accept 'no' for an answer? Whether you say yes or no, will they lie or exaggerate to their friends, to your cost?
Imagine the appeal of asking a female friend to accompany you to such an event so that you don't feel like a gazelle in a lion enclosure? Can you imagine the disgust and despair you feel that such a precaution should even cross your mind in such an honourable, well intentioned field of endeavour?
So, Bruce, how good is your imagination? How long would you tolerate marinating in that before you could not be bothered volunteering your spare time and earnest efforts any more?
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:06 UTC (Thu) by cesy (guest, #60482) [Link]
She doesn't look like an outlier from here.
Early education does make a difference, and there is bias there, but there is also prejudice in open source, as well as prejudice in the IT industry in general. All of those things need considering. However, here, we were talking about open source, not early education, so please don't derail the conversation.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 21:24 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] I really think the problem is less Open Source than external factors. So, just talking about Open Source doesn't actually help to solve the problem significantly.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Sep 22, 2009 15:15 UTC (Tue) by Lefty (guest, #51528) [Link] If that were the case, why the order-of-magnitude difference in participation in FLOSS development versus the software industry in general...?
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 21:27 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Some of us believe you (but you knew that).
(There are 'I know Skud' t-shirts? where? ;) )
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 21:48 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
They haven't been made yet, but my Canadian BFF Marna keeps talking about it, because wherever she travels she meets people who know me. Email me and I'll put you in touch :)
Posted Aug 28, 2009 2:04 UTC (Fri) by jamesmrh (guest, #31622) [Link]
Where can I get one of these t-shirts?
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Sep 22, 2009 15:10 UTC (Tue) by Lefty (guest, #51528) [Link] Oh, I think you want to be careful, there, Kirrily: Bruce is likely to accuse you of being "sickly nonlinear". In point of fact, in my attempt to discuss the issue with Bruce at the Community Leadership Summit, I found myself being interrupted in mid-sentence by Bruce over and over so that he could provide me with an apparently endless series of reasons why I was wrong to bring up RMS' behavior at GCDS: "He's got Asperger's, he's incapable of perceiving when he's offended anyone, he's incapable of apologizing when it's pointed out to him that he's offended anyone, he's been doing the same joke for fifteen years, you're not a girl, and there's really not a problem, anyway." (The resemblance to the argumentation here bears an eerie familiarity, in fact. Bruce seems to have thought this through and, sadly, this is the best he can manage.)At which point I decided "this wasn't a discussion", and left to find someone more interesting to talk to. Fortunately, there proved to be no shortage. For the record, I personally view this "outreach effort" on the FSF's part, absent any acknowledgment of past bad behavior and any commitment to do better in the future, as being in essence a whitewash. Just sayin'.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:17 UTC (Thu) by Myrtti (guest, #57414) [Link]
I've been using open source for quite a while, first concious try was around 2001 with installing Red Hat from floppies. I've used Linux as my primary OS since 2003, and I've worked for Finnish Center for Open Source Solutions, am supervising the Finnish equivalent of Summer of Code for the fourth year, have worked as software developer for a Finnish open source software development and deployment company for two years. I'm an Ubuntu member due to my contribution to the community, and I use emacs daily in my work doing scripting and editing LaTeX.
But I know all too well that my existence is a matter of pure faith, a bit like the existence of Invisible Pink Unicorns.
So never mind me...
// Myrtti - http://myrtti.fi
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 21:43 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Hi,Since you are one of the people summoned to a thread already in progress, I feel it my duty to inform you that nobody was attempting to say that you don't exist. The topic is why there are not more women involved, and whether this is due to internal to Free Software issues or external ones. I believe that some of the problems, and indeed the most significant ones, are external to Free Software. I think one significant problem is early childhood education serving as a demotivator of women to participate in technical volunteerism as well as technical occupations. Beyond that, the question is whether there is something different about women - not you obviously but women as a population - that make them less interested in technical volunteerism. We have more data regarding technical occupations. I would be really glad to see a serious discussion of this.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:18 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
Speaking of "threads already in progress", are you aware that this discussion is part of a larger thread that's been going on for at least a decade? From where I'm sitting, you're the one coming to a thread in progress, not having read the FAQs, reiterating threads that have previously been covered in enormous depth by people with greater knowledge of the subject area, and acting as if you know all the answers despite being (AFAICT) a complete newbie in the field.
It's like if I showed up on the Debian mailing lists and suggested that Debian would be much more popular and successful if it would only include a Flash player in the distro.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:23 UTC (Thu) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link]
> It's like if I showed up on the Debian mailing lists and suggested that Debian would be much more popular and successful if it would only include a Flash player in the distro.
FYI: http://packages.debian.org/lenny/gnash
;)
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:57 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
I think she means Adobe's, installed by default :P
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:00 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
What? No, that can't be right. What I want to know is why there isn't Flash support in Debian.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:24 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] The program he pointed out does support Flash. Not as well as the version from Adobe, yet.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:28 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
I don't think that's true. I think the problem is that Debian doesn't have Flash support. Why don't we address that first?
(Do I need to put emoticons here to make this clearer? Would ";)" help?)
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:46 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] :-)Well, I would swear that when I ran gnash as a mozilla plugin, I saw the not-HTML menus and animations that were supposed to use flash. Just slowly, and using a lot of memory.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Sep 6, 2009 8:09 UTC (Sun) by mdz@debian.org (subscriber, #14112) [Link]
Bruce, if you read the past few messages carefully, I think you'll find that
Skud was making an analogy, mirroring the ignorance, and unwillingness to listen, which is so often displayed by men when this subject comes up.
Your line of argument sounds, to someone with a working knowledge of
With apologies for spoiling the joke by spelling it out...
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:34 UTC (Thu) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link]
Q: Why isn't there flash support in Debian?
A: There is! The GNU Gnash player is installed by default, and it supports the Flash file format. Unfortunatly, it's not 100% complete in its support yet, but progress is being made.
Q: Why isn't Adobe's proprietary Flash player distributed on Debian media, such that it is installed by default?
A: You'd have to ask Adobe about this. Their licensing terms forbid it.
Q: Why doesn't Debian provide an installer that fetches Adobe Flash Player from adobe.com?
A: It does. The package is called flashplugin-nonfree.
Q: Why is flashplugin-nonfree in 'contrib' instead of 'main'?
A: Because it relies on non-free software, which prevents it from going in 'main' per the Debian Free Software Guidelines.
Q: I don't care about the DFSG. Why isn't installing packages from 'contrib' enabled by default on my debian system?
A: Because when asked, during installation, you said that the 'contrib' repository should not be automatically enabled for you.
Hope that clears things up. ;)
Debian Posted Aug 28, 2009 5:00 UTC (Fri) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
I saw a web page that says you just have to log in as root and go to adobe.com and download it.
But I haven't tried yet because I keep getting errors about my video card. I tried changing the permissions but it didn't help. What kinds of idiot designed this? It's a *brand-new* nvidia g10000, it works fine in Windows. Linux sucks :-(
I think I'm going to try this thing my friend told me about called "automatix", do you know it?
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:23 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] You're chiding me for being a newbie after explaining in your paper how bad it is to do that. :-)I really do appreciate having you attach some data to this issue. The LWN discussion was not terribly factual with men telling other men what was going on with the women. Like many newbies, I think I have something to contribute to the issue. The proper reaction is not to smash me down before I have a chance.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 5:12 UTC (Fri) by rictic (guest, #58655) [Link] Like many newbies, I think I have something to contribute to the issue. The proper reaction is not to smash me down before I have a chance. And if, having been linked to a number articles, a FAQ and a wiki, you continue to evidence a lack of examination of the conversation already in progress? A more forceful indication that the newbie go and educate themselves before continuing, or at least ask questions rather than making suggestions seems appropriate to me.
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