Debian women may leave due to 'sexist' post

Sam Varghese
Tuesday, 16 December 2008 02:13

Opinion and Analysis

Ruiz finally decided that it wasn't worth fighting about. "I tried to briefly explain my point of view in my weblog, but decided not to publish it in Debian Planet, not to keep discussing it, as it was leading nowhere. I also decided to reduce my involvement in the project for some time, and announced that I was taking some vacations from Debian until I can sort out what to do. In any case, I've never talked about leaving Debian or anything like that, and I don't plan to resign from being a developer."

Ruiz said that when she joined the project four years ago, "the atmosphere I perceived was encouraging and friendly, and I felt very comfortable there. After that I started to get involved in different working groups inside Debian and developing stuff. I honestly don't think I would have joined Debian if it wasn't for the Debian Women project."

She added: "Before all this happened, I had the perception that Debian - as an organisation- wasn't really that sexist. I even commented (about) that in some interviews. I wasn't there before the Debian Women project existed, so I cannot compare to that. I'm often told that before it was even worse. In any case, I think there is some kind of regression since when the Debian Women project was started."

Ruiz feels it would be a good idea to have a code of conduct in Debian as Ubuntu does.  "That way, women -and maybe other groups too- wouldn't be de facto censored and pushed down by certain practices that seem to try to keep the current status quo of no more women in the project than those strictly needed. In fact, to be honest, I wouldn't bring any of my female friends to Debian right now, as things are."

She plans to gradually reduce her involvement in Debian and start getting involved in other free software projects which she finds more women-friendly.

This is not the first sexist post made to this mailing list. Andrew Suffield posted a message in January 2006, titled "For those who care about lesbians."

Ruiz says the project reacted much better to that announcement than it has to Mouette's post.

Asked what she thought Debian project leader Steve McIntyre should do in the circumstances, Ruiz responded: "What I would have expected was a public message, probably in d-d-a too, stating clearly that Joss message was wrong and offensive, that the Debian project was against this kind of action. He (Mouette) has sent out a wrong message about the project out there and no counter-message has been sent about it."

Reaction has been sought from McIntyre.

Debian has more than a thousand developers who produce a top-quality GNU/Linux distribution. Begun in 1993, the project is expected to release version 5.0, known as Lenny, soon.