My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet) [LWN.net]

My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 25, 2007 22:40 UTC (Tue) by barbara (guest, #3014)
In reply to: My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet) by ris
Parent article: My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet)

Carry on and keep posting these articles, Rebecca. I find them inspiring.
To paraphrase what Carla said in her article, don't let the usual
naysayers and negative comments stop you.

to post comments

My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 25, 2007 23:19 UTC (Tue) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] (24 responses)

I appreciate the articles as well, and wouldn't mind if you decide to either delete trollish comments, or provide "kill-file" mechanisms so the rest of us can.

Articles on how to increase participation in free software by underrepresented communities are entirely on topic. I think that some of the same social issues that are leading to underrepresentation of women are also leading to underrepresentation of Asians (despite the large number of Asians in the proprietary software world), so LWN might want to look at that as well.

My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 26, 2007 3:36 UTC (Wed) by linuxrocks123 (subscriber, #34648) [Link] (5 responses)

> Articles on how to increase participation in free software by underrepresented communities are entirely on topic.

We just have different views of what should be on-topic for this site. I don't care at all about increasing the participation of underrepresented groups in free software unless there is clear and convincing evidence that something is being done specifically to exclude them. Otherwise, taking action to improve its accessability to an underrepresented group is bad engineering, because it's optimizing for an uncommon case: why would we want to change free software to make it attractive to those who have shown by their actions that they're not interested in participating in it?

I think this article, others like it, and this entire issue are mostly crap, and the inclusion of articles like this decreases the signal-to-noise ratio of LWN. You disagree, so go ahead and continue subscribing. And as far as killfiles, I post here on average about once every other month, so I really think you can just handle it but I'd have no objections to a killfile feature. I'd suggest such a feature allow articles by specific editors to be killfiled as well.

My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 26, 2007 6:03 UTC (Wed) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (2 responses)

>We just have different views of what should be on-topic for this site. I don't care at all about increasing the participation of underrepresented groups in free software unless there is clear and convincing evidence that something is being done specifically to exclude them.

Looking at just the current front page, I don't care at all about Xandros's appropriateness for former Windows users, or dyne:bolic's releases, or FOSS.IN (I'm on the wrong continent), or security updates to KDE, or changes to Fedora's default theme, or even Firefox releases. (I'm using epiphany on debian.) Nothing wrong with that; even those articles that are personally irrelevant are still vaguely interesting for the sense of community zeitgeist they give, and it is not, after all, called NjsWN.

Perhaps you use and are interested in every one of those projects, and having become accustomed to the LWN team's uncanny ability to post only articles that you do care about, were so shocked by this one that you felt the need to complain.

Or... maybe, despite your claims, you do care about this topic rather more than I care about learning that PHP is insecure (I mean seriously, for this I need a subscription?). If the presence or absence of women in FOSS is so irrelevant, why are you posting here at all, much less threatening not to subscribe, swearing, and cobbling together arguments that would make a Philosophy 10 professor weep?[1]

I can't read your mind, but to us out here, your behavior just doesn't look like that of someone who actually finds the article irrelevant; it looks like that of someone who has a real problem with giving women a fair shake, and tries to disguise it (maybe even to themselves) by pretending to find the article irrelevant. I could be wrong, but you might want to think about it anyway.

[1] Okay, I was trying to refrain, but this is too long regardless and seriously, that first paragraph... once you unwrap the last clause from the obfuscating rhetorical question, its argument is "empirically, women seem uninterested in participating in free software as it currently is practiced; therefore, the ideal form of free software going forward would preserve their disinterest". Huh? And somehow this is supposed to be related to "optimizing for the uncommon case"; yet it seems to me that currently about half of the people who might otherwise participate in free software development are choosing not to. Doubling our contributor base would be a 100% increase, not the ordinary meaning of "uncommon". But, you argue, even losing half our contributors for stupid reasons is actually okay -- it would only be a problem if there was "clear and convincing evidence that something is being done specifically to exclude them". I would like to live in a world where harm is only ever caused by specific intent, and what harm does occur is universally accompanied by clear and convincing evidence of its source... but I'm still looking.

My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 26, 2007 10:00 UTC (Wed) by linuxrocks123 (subscriber, #34648) [Link] (1 responses)

> If the presence or absence of women in FOSS is so irrelevant, why are you posting here at all, much less threatening not to subscribe, swearing, and cobbling together arguments that would make a Philosophy 10 professor weep?[1]

I think you meant "101" there, but whatever. I think the presence or absence of women in FOSS is irrelevant to this site, not to the world. Clearly, I'm not disinterested in these articles. They actively tick me off. I'm not trying to disguise that.

> [1] Okay, I was trying to refrain, but this is too long regardless and seriously, that first paragraph... once you unwrap the last clause from the obfuscating rhetorical question, its argument is "empirically, women seem uninterested in participating in free software as it currently is practiced; therefore, the ideal form of free software going forward would preserve their disinterest". Huh?

No. However, it would be a bad idea to change free software in ways that make it less efficient or less desirable by current contributors in the unfounded hope that others who have not joined us in the past may decide to do so.

> And somehow this is supposed to be related to "optimizing for the uncommon case"; yet it seems to me that currently about half of the people who might otherwise participate in free software development are choosing not to. Doubling our contributor base would be a 100% increase, not the ordinary meaning of "uncommon".

I don't think we stand such a chance of doubling our contributor base. You seriously think that if we all standardize on Python and tone down the flame level on LKML to "slow cook" that all of a sudden 2 million (an approximation of the number of current male FLOSS contributors, pulled directly from my posterior) women worldwide will decide they love Linux and start hacking? Really?

> But, you argue, even losing half our contributors for stupid reasons is actually okay -- it would only be a problem if there was "clear and convincing evidence that something is being done specifically to exclude them". I would like to live in a world where harm is only ever caused by specific intent, and what harm does occur is universally accompanied by clear and convincing evidence of its source... but I'm still looking.

Well, if you don't have evidence of its source, you don't know its source, so you should go look for it rather than try to fix the problem without knowing its cause. I don't find the lack of women in FLOSS a problem in itself, but it could be a symptom of a problem if they are actually being excluded.

I don't think women should be excluded. That wouldn't be ethically right, it would be tactically stupid, and if I thought it were the case, I'd be first in line shouting that they not be. But, I don't think that's what's going on, and unless I see clear and convincing evidence that it is, I remain unconvinced. No FLOSS project I know of has a policy of excluding women or is actively hostile in any way towards women contributing.

For many contributors, this is a hobby or is otherwise a labor of love. And men and women tend to have different hobbies sometimes: I'm sure there's a pretty bad gender skew among amateur crotchet artists. Why do men and women like different things and have different hobbies? Well, there's still research into it, and there's a lot of politics and bias, and no one really knows for sure yet. But, we do know that they do.

I don't make judgments about how people spend their free time unless they're doing something that hurts themselves or others. I like computers, and especially Linux and free software, and I'll talk about it and promote it to anyone who wants to listen. Personally, I find that men are statistically more likely to care to listen. That's okay with me. People like different things, and not everyone has to be into computers. There are exceptions to everything, and when I find a woman who does want to hear about Linux, that's great, too. It just doesn't happen very often.

You can't be serious

Posted Sep 26, 2007 11:34 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]

Python? Crotchet artists? Your whole rant is a good reason for you to read the whole series. Please do that, and then subscribe to LWN. We will be waiting.

My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 26, 2007 21:55 UTC (Wed) by jzbiciak (guest, #5246) [Link] (1 responses)

Hmm... I retract an earlier comment I made to someone else. I thought your post was a tongue in cheek attempt at ironic humor.

You really are a jerk.

I guess, if nothing else, your post serves as a perfect example of what the article was talking about.

why would we want to change free software to make it attractive to those who have shown by their actions that they're not interested in participating in it?

It's more accurate to say that the bluster of a few tends to drive away talented, creative people we'd love to work with, but have better things to do than put up with boorish trolls. They'd rather be where their contributions are evaluated on their merit, and conversations are constructive. It just so happens that men put up with this behavior more than women do.

My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 26, 2007 21:57 UTC (Wed) by jzbiciak (guest, #5246) [Link]

It just so happens that men put up with this behavior more than women do.

I meant here that men are more likely to put up with boorish behavior...

My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 26, 2007 3:47 UTC (Wed) by proski (guest, #104) [Link] (16 responses)

It's good that you touched this topic. In my opinion, part of the problem in both cases is fear of "losing face" in public. If you are in a mailing list, it is expected that somebody tells you that you are wrong. It is expected, it happened to me many times, but not everybody can tolerate it.

I have noticed that many persons tend to take the discussion private as soon as they get an answer to a question they posted in the mailing list. I have noticed a strong correlation of this phenomenon with the use of rich formatting in e-mail. It became so bad that I had to filter out all my mailing list traffic containing HTML parts, except replies and some important low traffic lists, just to avoid the frustration of having the discussion turn private with me as a single recipient.

For some reason, those people expect me to take care of their question single-handedly, and not give me the opportunity to publicize the discussion for benefit of others. What they don't realize it that their demand for personal attention would backfire.

It's really not a gender issue, although I can imagine that women are involved in many cases and can be frustrated.

Perhaps it's not an issue that the software developers can solve alone. It would be nice to have a psychologist around next time this topic is touched.

It's different basic expectations

Posted Sep 26, 2007 7:05 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (15 responses)

Women have natural tendency to avoid open conflicts, Japanese taught this way, but in all cases the end problem is the same: fear of loss of the face is great. So they tend to use personal e-mail to avoid public humiliation.

What they tend not to understand is that geeks absolutely hate private conversations: they are unaccessible to Google, they can not be pointed out later, etc. Actually it was explained quite succulently in well-known How To Ask Questions The Smart Way article.

And as you can this style is not just creation of misfits "because they fell this way" - it actually makes sense if you'll think about it! Yes, sometimes responses are too rude, but mostly they are justified if you value time more then politeness...

It's different basic expectations

Posted Sep 26, 2007 9:40 UTC (Wed) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link] (6 responses)

Women have a natural tendency to avoid conflicts? Are you certain that they, like the Japanese,
were not just socialized that way? Careful about ascribing to innate nature that which is more
easily explained by culture.

Yup. It's pretty simple...

Posted Sep 26, 2007 13:48 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (5 responses)

It's biology. Species where females did a lot of noise (and thus were killed) are extinct, species where males did a lot of noise (and thus were killed) survived (males are not essential for childraising).

And yes, this basic fact of life is true even today: man can pull all-nighter debugging something, woman must go home on time for the children's sake. So yes, males in general are more aggressive and rude. And they can "afford" risky situations. Thus while free software fights for survival - we'll see many more males there then females, when it'll become mainstream - we'll see more and more women there. You'll find significantly more males in startups, then in big companies, too.

Actually the number of women among free software enthusiasts shows how far we are from "world domination": we can only then claim that we achieved this status when we'll have the same proportion of women among developers as in proprietary world. I'm just very unsure that the best way there is to change community to make it more "women-friendly"...

Yup. It's pretty simple...

Posted Sep 26, 2007 13:58 UTC (Wed) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link] (4 responses)

I'm not going to get into an evolutionary pyschology debate here on LWN, but given that human
behavior is so mouldable by what they learn as young children, and given that we know that
different cultures can and do create wildly different levels of "noisiness", as you described it,
Occam's Razor suggests that reaching for biological explanations of the disparity is unnecessary,
when purely cultural explanations are both simpler and more easily tested.

Different cultures ?

Posted Sep 26, 2007 14:11 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (3 responses)

1. You asked about "natural tendency". To me "natural tendency" == "tendency determined by biology". What is your definition ?

2. Name one survived culture where women are more aggressive then man. There are myths related to amazons and may be some small tribes, but all major players of such type are either extinct or never existed at all. This can hardly be explained by "what they learn as young children".

Actually it's even worse.

Posted Sep 26, 2007 14:21 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (2 responses)

Small children are usually taught by women and so taught politeness first. Only later in life guys are starting to become "arrogant jerks". Take the situation in Japan: while Japanese look (from viewpoint of westerner) always uber-polite yet actually they are using different speech patterns and women are not supposed to talk in public at all!

Actually it's even worse.

Posted Sep 26, 2007 15:16 UTC (Wed) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link]

Y'know, it IS even worse; I realized that I forgot to question how you got the idea that women are less assertive or aggressive, in the first place.

Actually it's even worse.

Posted Sep 26, 2007 18:30 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

"Only later in life" do guys suddenly get tons of testosterone coursing through their system. Given how much it affects them physically, one would imagine it would have an effect on their psyche as well.

Nonsense

Posted Sep 26, 2007 12:44 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (7 responses)

Yes, sometimes responses are too rude, but mostly they are justified if you value time more then politeness...

Nonsense. As the linked article says: "The best FOSS people are polite and pleasant. I do not believe that anyone is so invaluable and indispensable that they can be excused from common courtesy".

Nonsense

Posted Sep 26, 2007 13:54 UTC (Wed) by peace (guest, #10016) [Link]

So "polite and pleasant" is where the bar is set? How the hell is anyone supposed to police that? It is completely subjective. I might be able to understand "not deliberately abusive" but really, I just don't care about this issue of politeness. There is only one thing that matters in FLOSS:

"Show me the code".

If being polite leads to more and better code than it will naturally win out. If being a stubborn abusive jackass leads to more code, than thats what we will see. FLOSS is a universe of personalities. It is not supposed to be a personality contest.

The call for "Politeness" can be just as much a power grab as being rude. And just as pointless.

Kind Regards

Article lies - plain and simple.

Posted Sep 26, 2007 13:59 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (5 responses)

I've read the article and decided to ignore this stupid passage. Linus is brash and rude - yes, he's honest, always ready to admit his mistakes and he rarely scold someone without reason, but as he himself said "I'm a scheming, conniving bastard who doesn't care for any hurt feelings or lost hours of work, if it just results in what I consider to be a better system". Ulrich Drepper (the guy who maintains GLibC) ? Polite and pleasant ? Don't make me laugh. Take almost any big project - and you'll find quite a few abrasive yet honest people at the top.

yes, there are guys who can be "polite and pleasant". Linus is among them. Yet this guise is rarely used among developers - that's more for tech talks, press and interaction with "outsiders"...

The best people

Posted Sep 26, 2007 15:55 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (4 responses)

The "best FOSS people" mentioned in the article are not necessarily the project leaders. And the Linux kernel is probably not a good example of Free software project, it is too peculiar in many respects.

To me it is related to professionalism. Good professionals in any field tend to be polite while bad ones are often rude, to customers and among themselves. There is no reason why software development should be different, or attract Asperger types any more often. And yet Free software development has a displeasing share of these antisocial behaviors and even people that defend them.

LWN is an excellent example of how developers (and users) can be polite with each other. Discussions here can also be curt and to the point but they are seldom rude. Maybe it is because the comment editor says, "Please try to be polite, respectful, and informative, and to provide a useful subject line", and the editorial style helps set this tone. So it can be done.

The best people

Posted Sep 26, 2007 17:54 UTC (Wed) by peace (guest, #10016) [Link] (2 responses)

FLOSS is an amature's ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amature ) domain and may it never become the domain of the professional because it would be the end of it.

LWN tends to stay away from the sensational unlike some other geek news site that plays to breathless hyperbole and emotion. I bet thats what keeps the discourse at least slightly elevated.

Kind Regards

The best people

Posted Sep 26, 2007 21:23 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (1 responses)

No doubt you mean "amateur". Please do not confuse "amateur" as the opposite of "professional", it is not. In French it literally means "lover", as someone who performs an activity out of love (as opposed to "for profit"). During some time in the late 19th century it became a derogatory term, probably when well-intentioned members of the unoccupied classes out of boredom started performing activities formerly in the realm of the professional. E.g. Sherlock Holmes, the original "amateur sleuth", as a prototypical example.

In Free software it is different. Many amateurs keep a very high level of professionalism, enough to embarrass many a paid developer. And (perhaps most importantly) many professionals love their work as much as any amateur.

And Free software is, without a doubt, the domain of the professional. And of the amateur. And of anyone who cares to contribute. LWN publishes summaries for every kernel release, the one for 2.6.23 will be freely available quite soon, if you care to look.

The best people

Posted Sep 27, 2007 1:46 UTC (Thu) by peace (guest, #10016) [Link]

Curious that you would choose to lecturer me on the very information I presented you with in my post.

-peace

The best people

Posted Sep 26, 2007 20:43 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Being maximally picky and even more off topic (as a strong Aspergic whose
sister is a psychologist specializing in aspies gives me a bit of clue in
this area), there certainly *is* a reason why software development
attracts Aspergic types more often.

A major characteristic of most, perhaps all Aspergics is fear of change.
In many of us one of the ways this manifests is a sort of
control-freakery: that is, we avoid all change but that which we know will
happen well in advance, and that which we initiate ourselves and thus know
about, because being scared as hell is unpleasant. Computers are
incredibly controllable devices which you can interact with almost like
people except you control them and can model them sensibly (social
modelling of humans in realtime is hopeless, but computers are different).
So we *are* strongly attracted to computing, and within that we *are*
strongly attracted to software development.

But it is perfectly possible to be pleasant to people while being
Aspergic: it takes a lot of effort and a lot of lurking time, but it's
doable. Even if you've got Asperger's, there's no real excuse to be
actively nasty. (Social faux pas are another matter and probably
unavoidable, but apologising generally works to fix things then.)

My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 26, 2007 15:14 UTC (Wed) by zooko (guest, #2589) [Link]

Here's yer killfile mechanism:

http://lwn.net/Articles/250334/