Comments on: “Happy Pony” openSUSE?

By: Maxim

Maxim — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 12:09:19 +0000

There are many reasons. Not only ‘flaming’.

Imagine an open source project with 1000 male contributors. You have only ~30% female contributors maybe because of less interest in IT. Then you have another ~30% because of potentially smaller salary. Then you have ~30% because in most cultures women have much less spare time to work on project (cooking, cleaning, children and so on). And then you have ~30% because of ‘flaming’.

As a result: 1000 * 0.3 * 0.3 * 0.3 * 0.3 = ~8.

It’s very positive estimation yet, I must say. There are many other conditions, not only specifically to FOSS…

By: Susanne Oberhauser

Susanne Oberhauser — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 11:02:57 +0000

Greg, I’ll gladly see where I can support the effort of a community council / community working group if it emerges. As said above, the challenge here is not the technology being attractive to women: the IT industry has ~30% female techies. The challenge is about the fine points of FLOSS communication. Addressing this will in itself open the doors to people who have higher expectations wrt respect.

By: Susanne Oberhauser

Susanne Oberhauser — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 10:56:01 +0000

yes, indeed, thx for pointing this out:

During the BoF, we realized, a low female participation here is just a symptom of an underlying challenge: a way of dealing with newcomers and their ‘dumb’ questions asked ‘at the wrong place’, and a way of dealing with non-technical topics or less tech-savvy people.

By: Gregory Zysk

Gregory Zysk — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 13:58:10 +0000

+1 @Pascal

It is about the health and overall environment of openSUSE. We need to make it a fun and effective place for all contributors, both men and women, old and young and from every culture. This is where we can and will make the difference 😉

@ Susanne Thanks for the summary Susanne, it was a great pleasure to meet and work with you and look forward to further discussions and coordination on attracting and retaining women in openSUSE. I think if you give Stella a push, we can start a discussion, as she seemed very interested in continuing the discussion Lydia started in the BoF 🙂

By: Pascal Bleser

Pascal Bleser — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 12:51:28 +0000

And, by the way, thanks for summarizing ! 🙂

By: Pascal Bleser

Pascal Bleser — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 12:50:22 +0000

Another important aspect, which came up pretty quickly during the BOF, is that it isn’t just about “women in openSUSE” (even though it is quite obviously a topic that deserves a lot of focus).

It applies to anyone who puts the atmosphere of the project (i.e. how the people in the project interact) higher than others, and higher than other criteria (such as technical quality, lack of limitations and hierarchy, etc…).

That seems to apply a lot more often to women, but is definitely not limited to women.