Hmm... Good question. [LWN.net]

Hmm... Good question.

Posted Sep 30, 2007 10:57 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
In reply to: Ok. If the issue is "problems faced by women in FOSS" then where is the list ? by tuxchick
Parent article: To Sir, with Love: How To Get More Women Involved in Open Source (O'ReillyNet)

What we are advocating for is to be treated with courtesy and respect. Just as any human deserves. Perhaps you think this is unreasonable?

In one word - yes. You propose serious change in a huge system for unknown benefit. Similar changes in other FOSS projects were strongly opposed. For example Linux kernel discriminates against 95% of Earth population (including, ironically enough, Linus himself) - by using non-translatable English messages. Yet all patches designed to fix this problem were rejected so far. The Linux developers feel that "courtesy and respect" to other language natives just "don't worth it".

Here we come to the crunch of the problem: a lot of guys in FOSS don't feel that huge change in the system (rehabilitation and in extreme cases removal of all technically brilliant jerks and misogynists) worth it, but women involved just skip over this very important step. This is not just "women in FOSS" problem, BTW - read about drobbins fate, for example.

That's why I've said "it's important to discuss them", not "it's important to solve them". Because it's not obvious that all requests are "worth it": if the price of making women developers happy is to make 90% of male developers unhappy - then my reaction will be "forget about it". I'm not sure if there are such extreme demands on table, but how can we know if we don't have a discussion ? Certainly "trivial" need "to be treated with courtesy and respect" is not so trivial. Right now "nice are polite" Linus can say anybody who thinks others don't have the "right to choice", and then tries to talk about "freedoms" is a damn hypocritical moron - and it'll not lead to temper tantrum from the person in question.

Guys in FOSS like this atmosphere so all suggestions that they should change it and treat everyone "with courtesy and respect", "avoid sexist jokes" and "objectification of women" in discussion and so on are viewed as direct attack - and rightfully so. I'm not saying such changes are not worth it - far from it, often discussions among FOSS folks are too corrosive and hurt progress even you don't think about women involved, but to say that "it's a no brainer" (like women like to assume) - is oversimplification...

to post comments

Here we go

Posted Sep 30, 2007 11:22 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (5 responses)

Thanks for admitting it frankly. IMHO all those jerks and misogynists need to either learn courtesy and respect (in other words, grow up) or be left out in the cold. It is an extremely unprofessional conduct, so even if it makes them uncomfortable at first, those people will probably be better off with their newfound skills.

As a side effect, we have learned in these threads that this kind of attitude is also driving lots of people away (women included) who don't feel like dealing with it, or have better things to do with their time.

Here we go

Posted Sep 30, 2007 11:53 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (4 responses)

Quite so. Nobody's suggesting the instition of a Free Software Courtesy
Authority with the power to ban people from mailiing lists. It's simply a
fact of life that social oil (i.e. `not being nasty to people') is
*beneficial*, especially over email where tempers can run high due to
undetected positive feedback loops and misinterpretations.

Would it really be disadvantageous to say `free software development lists
should try not to turn themselves into alt.flame', especially given the
sheer number of projects that implode (often at an early stage) because
the technically brilliant guys who start them simply can't interact with
other human beings without being nasty to them?

(and, again, this social oil is hardly difficult to learn: if I can do it
with autism holding me back, so can you. The Golden Rule is the most
important part: `treat others as you would wish to be treated'. I don't
know anyone who actually likes to be attacked. Maybe you do, I don't
know.)

Here we go

Posted Sep 30, 2007 12:38 UTC (Sun) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (1 responses)

>(and, again, this social oil is hardly difficult to learn: if I can do it
with autism holding me back, so can you. The Golden Rule is the most
important part: `treat others as you would wish to be treated'. I don't
know anyone who actually likes to be attacked. Maybe you do, I don't
know.)

But what if the "guys" are perfectly okay as far as the golden rule is concerned? They're not the ones objecting; it's that new outsider that doesn't understand that this is the way things already work here.

The "golden rule" is a good foundation for social interaction when dealing with individual interactions within an existing group, but like any other generality, it breaks down and indeed even causes problems when you're taking about mixing *groups* of people that may hold different values dear.

Here we go

Posted Sep 30, 2007 13:02 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Perhaps so in the general case, but the specific case of `don't attack
newbies' is, I thought, one that most corners of geekdom held too. Some
poeple in the free software community seem to treat it as `don't attack
newbies unless they've made a tiny error, in which case a charred hide
will be good for them' and judging from some other posts in this
interminable thread some people are treating it as `don't attack newbies
unless they are female'.

Golden rule CREATED this problem

Posted Sep 30, 2007 12:57 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (1 responses)

Nobody likes to be attacked, but FOSS people can (and often prefer) open attack to behind-the-scenes intrigue or polite allegories.

Yes, it's true that some projects were destroyed by lack of tact, but a lot more were created by the people with lack of tact. Brilliant coders who are good in interpersonal communication as well organize startups and sell them for millions of dollars, not create free software, you know...

Golden rule CREATED this problem

Posted Sep 30, 2007 13:39 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

A project which prefers open attack to anything else will tend to drive
away all those developers who don't prefer open attack, sure. That doesn't
mean that open attack is a good thing, especialy not openly attacking
newbies (which is what really drives them away). Behind-the-scenes
intrigue is wrong, as well. `Not being nasty to people' does not imply
`stab people quietly in the back'. The Golden Rule implies that you
shouldn't do that either, unless you personally like being quietly stabbed
in the back, that is. (Few people do!)

I don't understand why you're arguing so hard against fundamental
principles of human discourse here. They're not rocket science. They're so
much not rocket science that they're cliched (`do as you would be done by'
for instance).