Ubuntu Women Project

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By Rebecca Sobol
January 13, 2010

The Ubuntu-Women project "is a team functioning under Ubuntu to provide a platform and encouragement for women to contribute to Ubuntu-Linux" Women are generally under-represented in Free/Open Source software and this project seeks to get more women involved in free software in general and in Ubuntu in particular.

The project was founded in 2006, according to the project wiki and it is currently quite active. There is a mailing list, an IRC channel (#ubuntu-women at irc.freenode.net), a forum and even its own planet.

The project has gotten so large lately that they feel the need for more leadership, and have asked the Ubuntu Community Council to appoint an interim leader. Elizabeth Krumbach wrote: "This team leader will hold this position for a minimum of 6 months, at which point the position will be re-evaluated. She will guide the project through formalizing a "voting team" for election of the next leader(s) and helping us work through our RoadMap for the Lucid Cycle." There are three candidates for interim leader: Amber Graner, Penelope Stowe and Melissa Draper.

In addition to finding a leader, the project seeks to clarify the purpose of the IRC channel. The channel is currently a place to hold project meetings and discuss project business, a place for idle (off-topic) chit-chat, and everything in between. For example, some women see the channel as a safe haven to to go when they are being harassed elsewhere. The channel logs are not archived and that is a point of contention. Some think that project business discussions should be archived, but not the idle chit-chat. Logging complaints could help to document the situation. But the logs might also be used against the complainant, for example during a job interview. Several options have been proposed.

One option is to split the current channel into two channels, leaving #ubuntu-women as a social channel, which is not archived, and create a separate channel called #ubuntu-women-project which would be a logged channel for project business. The second option is to ban off-topic chatter in #ubuntu-women and to create a channel specifically for complaints. The third option is to log all chatter on the #ubuntu-women channel, and also create a separate channel where the project leader and her team can discuss any issues that arise. That second channel would not be publicly logged, but the logs would be available on request by the Community Council. There are a few that feel that creating a second channel would fracture the project and would eventually lead to its demise, but overall there is some consensus that a second channel is needed.

Melissa Draper posted her concerns on her blog.

On a personal level, the idea of logging the #ubuntu-women social banter is a real concern and worries me to no end. #ubuntu-offtopic is not logged, and is a social channel that caters to the 96% male/4% female audience. The prospect of logging a 50% female social channel because some people who haven't bothered to really take the time to understand the Ubuntu Women Project think that maybe they might kinda one day be mentioned potentially negatively doesn't sit well in comparison. Letting women socialise with a group half-comprised of women under the same circumstances as men are allowed to socialise with a group almost entirely comprised of men isn't going to ruin the whole Ubuntu project.

Melissa is also in favor of separating the business side of the channel from the social side. "I genuinely believe it will be more effective to split out the project stuff and have #ubuntu-women-project. I believe it is harder to move social/emotional discussion as doing so breaks the mood or potentially hits nerves."

The project is also working on revamping its wiki page, and continues to increase the participation of women in the Ubuntu project. It's a place where people can go for mentoring and encouragement. Men are welcome to join the project, participate in the mailing list and IRC, to help and be helped. If you have considered getting involved in Ubuntu but are not sure where to start, check out the Ubuntu Community website. If you need more mentoring though, Ubuntu Women might be able to help.

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