What puts women off FOSS?

Thankyou for your concern and support. It is indeed a frightening situation, and the police are
involved. They, unfortunately, do not consider the people sending these messages to be "all
bark and no bite". Perhaps some "death threat" messages are sent by blusterers, but the texts I
have received were classified as coming from people who will, in the police's experience, very
likely cause physical harm. :(

I posted in this thread to point out that women contributing to the FOSS world are not "just"
confronted with men viewing them as second-class citizens or as freebies from the Blow-Up
Doll factory. Hostility covers a wide range.

I agree with you that this hostility doesn't reflect the behaviour of all men, or in some places,
even of men in general. I work in over 20 free-software projects, and I invariably encounter
only polite and helpful behaviour. I can't speak for the projects at large, since I specialize in
i18n, but within my area of expertise, I enjoy very positive relationships with all my colleagues.
This applies not only to the large projects, like Debian, GNOME and KDE, but also to the
individual projects, like Mailman and Inkscape.

My male colleagues in these projects have been just as shocked as you by the death threats I
have received, mostly because they have never personally encountered anything of the sort, but
also because they suddenly realize we have no mechanism for reporting such behaviour and
dealing with it.

I believe it will be useful to emphasize the positive behaviour that does exist, and to follow
Ubuntu's example by creating Rules of Conduct for participation. Then we _do_ have a
mechanism within each project, and we have models to follow.

Dealing with hostile behaviour _within_ projects is the key step forward, even if things like
these death threats may attract more attention. Make projects a positive and welcoming place
for people of all backgrounds, and you will increase your membership and QA'd contributions.
This is a win-win.

Outside the projects, it's still frightening to be targetted, but there are some laws in place, and
the people causing the suffering will hopefully be caught and face the consequences. Outside
FOSS projects, it's more of a wider community issue.

Which brings me to something you may have wondered, or asked. Why do I continue to
participate, while receiving death threats against myself and my family? Am I crazy? (Well, just a
tad eccentric, I prefer to think. ;) )

I continue for the reason I've mentioned above. Within the projects to which I contribute, I am
welcomed and valued. I believe it is worth the risk, to experience that kind of community, while
being useful (which is very important to me).

If I had experienced hostility within any of my projects, I would not have felt it worth
continuing in those. Volunteer time in order to get hassled? No, thanks.

So, if you want volunteers and participation, treat your participants the way my i18n colleagues
treat me. Since I have been unable to code for some years now, due to illness, I do not know if
the rest of each project is as welcoming. But you can do your own part in making it so.