Will FSF's summit on women in FOSS achieve anything?

Sam Varghese
Tuesday, 15 September 2009 08:06

Opinion and Analysis

As can be expected, such discussions tend to set the issue even further back on the radar. And it's not surprising - if, the reasoning goes, such bigots are the advocates for this cause, it is certainly not worth supporting.

Some people who consider themselves part of the FOSS community - let me make it clear that I do not - like computer journalist Bruce Byfield, have already concluded that women are not attracted to FOSS projects because of sexism. Of course, this is a nice stick with which to beat people; one can't really argue against it without being accused of being sexist oneself.

The figures trotted out when one argues about sexism being the cause date back to 2006 - a survey done in the European Union quoted a figure of less than 2 percent involvement when it came to women in FOSS projects.

Nobody has done a survey to find out why women are not taking to FOSS in droves - or even at the levels of activity seen in the proprietary software world. Byfield cites a figure of 28 percent - the source of this data is the same survey cited above - but it is not clear whether this includes just developers, or whether it extends to anyone involved in the field of proprietary software - marketing and sales people, administrators in proprietary software companies and the like.

One must bear in mind that many of the roles which are part and parcel of a proprietary software company are not required in a FOSS project/company. But nobody makes this clear.

I'm not sure whether making this issue exclusively about gender will do much good. We might then end up with women joining FOSS projects in droves - only to be promptly pissed off by male developers who ask them about things like dress sense.

One thing that will help pull women towards FOSS is if they see role models in the community, people whose ideas/achievements they want to emulate. Which raises the question: what kind of profile do women already in the community have in the wider world of software development? Or even further, in the wider community?

Will it do much good to try and stage-manage an increase in the number of women in FOSS? I doubt this will have a lasting impact; like all things which last in the FOSS community, the process has to be organic.