FSF to host a mini-summit on Women in Free Software [LWN.net]

FSF to host a mini-summit on Women in Free Software

Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:12 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639)
In reply to: FSF to host a mini-summit on Women in Free Software by Skud
Parent article: FSF to host a mini-summit on Women in Free Software

Okay....there are communities that get it right. Good. So have those communities been able to pollinate people from their projects into other projects and spreading their culture to existing projects?

These are examples of projects that start off with the right culture. Do you have any examples of projects which have successfully made a transition to a more inviting culture? That's the hard part....once a culture is in place for years..how do you successfully transition?

Or is our only hope to burn all the existing projects to the ground and start over? I don't know if I personally have enough gasoline on hand to make that happen.

-jef

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FSF to host a mini-summit on Women in Free Software

Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:41 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]

I read it..again..before my last comment...did i miss something? Is there an example at the URL or a link their in which depicts a project that successfully accomplished a cultural transition around an existing codebase instead of building a new culture while building a new codebase? To my reading, both Dreamwidth and AO3 are examples of doing things right very early on. Or did a read that wrong?

But I do appreciate the RTFM attitude...it quote comforting while I am cast adrift in this brave new world of inclusiveness.

-jef

FSF to host a mini-summit on Women in Free Software

Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:52 UTC (Thu) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link]

The Python community is currently working on a diversity statement along the lines of Dreamwidth's, as an example of an existing project actively working on these issues. The Ubuntu project also has Ubuntu-Women, which has been active for a few years.

Your reading the manuals is appreciated. These discussions can be kinda exhausting. The Geek Feminism wiki and blog are also excellent resources on the topic :)

FSF to host a mini-summit on Women in Free Software

Posted Aug 27, 2009 21:11 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]

Watching python attempt a transition will be instructive. I recognize that if we had the luxury to start over today many of the projects cultures would perform better. The do's and don't list for starting a project at this point has some traction as a meme. I'm not as concerned about new projects moving forward. But I am concerned that we don't know the do's and don'ts yet on how to transition smoothly for projects that are established.

It's a lot easier to drive a car to where you want to go..if you know where you are. I think a lot of projects know where they want to go..I don't think they know where they are...and they are just starting to figure out its okay to ask for directions. Cultural inertia is a hard problem and we can make just as many wrong turns changing cultures trying to get to where we want to go..as we can deciding on a culture at the beginning.

-jef

FSF to host a mini-summit on Women in Free Software

Posted Aug 28, 2009 4:05 UTC (Fri) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]

I believe Dreamwidth is a fork of LiveJournal.