Recent Article about Women in Open Source (fwd)

[susan wu <su...@arctic.org>]

fyi - a response I sent to the author of a recently published article

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 23:45:30 -0700 (PDT)
From: susie@apache.org
To: jlyman03@yahoo.com
Cc: fitz@apache.org
Subject: Recent Article about Women in Open Source


Hello Jay:

You recently posted an article about an OSCON session regarding women and open 
source.  I would like to submit an alternative/additional viewpoint along with 
some corrections.

I have been involved with the open source movement for many years, initially as 
a technical contributor, and now on an infrastructure level. There was pushback 
to an initial proposal made by Danese Cooper not because we don't desire to be 
more inclusive of all groups, but because we did not reach consensus agreement 
that the particular proposal in question was the right approach to solve the 
problem. As you may know, the Apache Software Foundation is run by consensus, 
and in this case, consensus was not clearly achieved.

Your article seems to suggest that the reason why we wanted to apply a more 
thorough process to understanding the problem is that we feared that "starting 
a women's group within a project would be divisive." Divisiveness is just one 
of many reasons we discussed internally.  Yes, the Apache Software Foundation 
is very motivated to recruit more women into our community.  However, it's not 
clear why there aren't more women in the first place.  The diction in your 
article seems to suggest harassment as a cause.  There may be incidents of 
harassment, but there are plenty of
other potential contributors:  lack of awareness, lack of interest, lack of
free time (as you do mention), etc.  However, I do think that the nature of the 
development process of open source does mandate more attention to how we open 
the community to a broader range of contributors.
For instance, the consensus-driven environment creates
a formidable challenge for less-assertive people, women included.

The issue that needs to be addressed around how to make open source 
contribution more viable and accessible to women is just a subsegment of the 
issue of how we make open source development more accessible to everyone.

One of the most important issues for all open source communities  - and this is 
the one we came to consensus agreement on internally - is how to make open 
source development accessible to all newcomers, not just women.  The process 
can seem indomitable and complicated - it is our duty to facilitate increased 
and improved contribution from all population segments through outreach, 
diligent mentorship, and empathy. How we address this on behalf of women is 
through recruitment efforts and tools that increase the likelihood of 
attracting female contributors/members.
I would like to point out that the issues we face are no more or less unique 
than issues everyone faces when approaching diversity-oriented recruiting.  We 
try to understand the context of our organization, we try to educate our 
membership, and we try to put in place processes and support systems that help 
us.

Danese's proposal may or may not be an effective tool to attain these goals. 
We're still discussing the issue thoroughly and thoughtfully, to make sure we 
do the best possible thing for the organization, in a method that makes sense 
for the entire community.

Lackluster communication and lack of empathy is something that needs to be 
addressed in all walks of life, amongst all genders, across all industries and 
functions, not just in open source, and not just between men
and women.

For future reference, the Apache Software Foundation has numerous projects, so 
your reference to "the Apache Project" is erroneous.  We are known as the 
Apache Software Foundation, and within the foundation, we have numerous 
projects.

Thank you for your coverage of issues that are relevant and important to our 
organization.

Best Regards,
Susan
Chief Media Officer
Apache Software Foundation

Re: Recent Article about Women in Open Source (fwd)

[Justin Erenkrantz <ju...@erenkrantz.com>]

On Wed, Aug 10, 2005 at 11:47:45PM -0700, susan wu wrote:
> 
> fyi - a response I sent to the author of a recently published article

Wow.  Thanks.  -- justin