OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

It's very possible to feel out of place (do you remember when you first started posting?): it is entirely possible that it is even more unwelcoming for some people than others.

When I *once* adopted a female-sounding pseudonym in such a space (by accident -- my usual username was taken), I received a threat of violence.

One of the people (not in this discussion, but another of the many on Skud's talk, which was excellent, reasonable and perceptive), has been arguing that women are complaining too much about sexism in open source. I know that this man harassed at least one woman coder on a project -- sending her inappropriate males, groping her in real life. The woman involved won't speak up because to do so will subject her to this kind of barrage of abuse and suspicion online, and she received no back up when she mentioned it to her male colleagues at the time.

Why bother? Why not just go to an environment that is friendlier, and not have to constantly fight within an environment where even criticising is viewed as "whining" about nothing, and whose conversation simply highlights how much people ignore and tolerate behaviour that in other communities would result in censure?

I'm really glad there are now projects that won't put up with this kind of crap in the open source community and wish them the best of luck. As the keynote says, I suspect they are heading for a much larger community of contributors, and will reap the benefits of attracting brilliant individuals who have been systematically derided and excluded in many of our projects until now.