Sharp: Closing a door [LWN.net]

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 2:32 UTC (Tue) by fuhchee (guest, #40059)
In reply to: Sharp: Closing a door by mrshiny
Parent article: Sharp: Closing a door

"There have been several studies that showed that more diverse teams often outperformed homogeneous teams."

Anything convincing skeptics, in an engineering type problem domain?

Diversity of thought is more important than - and independent of - diversity of physiology.

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Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 3:13 UTC (Tue) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (4 responses)

> Diversity of thought is more important than - and independent of - diversity of physiology.

Unfortunately you can't really measure the former, so instead we get quotas enforcing the latter.

(BTW, I wholeheartedly agree with you)

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 9:56 UTC (Tue) by niner (guest, #26151) [Link] (3 responses)

And how exactly did we jump from a female high profile developer being driven away by hostile behavior to quotas enforcing diversity of physiology?

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 12:34 UTC (Wed) by fuhchee (guest, #40059) [Link] (2 responses)

Reading between those lines is not even hard. If you designate "diversity of physiology" as a desirable quantity, you will set out to measure it. You will have goals - whether explicitly stated or secret, short of which you will declare the situation a "problem". It's a quota.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 13, 2015 13:54 UTC (Tue) by mrshiny (guest, #4266) [Link] (1 responses)

I think we can all agree that we want the best people for the kernel, right? And that there is no correlation between race/gender/decision orientation/etc and intelligence. with me so far? If there kernel team is predominantly white males, it stands to reason that smart women and non-whites (etc) AREN'T in the team. That means the kernel loses what benefits they can provide.

We don't need quotas to identify a problem. We don't need quotas to realize that part of the solution is just trying to be more inclusive and polite. There kernel is supposed to be a meritocracy. Funny how so few minorities are represented. Unless you're claiming that they're just inferior, there must be some other problem keeping them out. You should listen when they tell you what the problem is, as Ms Sharp has done.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 13, 2015 14:09 UTC (Tue) by fuhchee (guest, #40059) [Link]

There are so many logical leaps in that chain that it reminds me of the Drake equation.