tags/wfsbloghttp://blog.spang.cc/tags/wfs/blogikiwiki2010-03-27T02:39:25Za late Ada Lovelace Day tributehttp://blog.spang.cc/posts/a_late_Ada_Lovelace_Day_tribute/Christine Spang2010-03-27T02:39:25Z2010-03-27T02:39:25Z
<p>I meant to participate in <a href="http://findingada.com/">Ada Lovelace Day</a>, a
day to celebrate and acknowledge the accomplishments of women in science
and technology, but I got distracted and then it was late and I fell
asleep. Such is my life. Anyway, I'd like to acknowledge a woman who
I've only recently met, mostly through the
<a href="http://fsf.org/">Free Software Foundation</a>'s women's outreach events.</p>
<p><a href="http://blogs.gnome.org/marina/">Marina Zhurakhinskaya</a> works for
RedHat, and is a developer for <a href="http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell">GNOME Shell</a>.
She's always enthusiastic about sharing her work with other people in
person and inviting others to get involved, and is one of those people who
is in there every day getting stuff done. I wish I were as confident
about the things that I work on.</p>
<p>Marina has also been working on the second incarnation of the GNOME
Women's Summer Outreach Program, I believe. And she keeps giving talks
all over the place, which is great! Go visibility. Now if only she would
blog more. <img src="http://blog.spang.cc/smileys/smile4.png" alt=";)" /></p>
<p>I'd never met Marina before last September, despite living in the same
metropolitan area! I'm glad women that I don't know about and who
work on free software exist and that I get to meet them and find out
that they live nearby.</p>
help fund women's travel to Libre Planethttp://blog.spang.cc/posts/help_fund_women__39__s_travel_to_Libre_Planet/2010-02-25T18:56:16Z2010-02-25T18:56:16Z
<p>At the <acronym title="Free Software Foundation">FSF</acronym>'s
<a href="http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/LibrePlanet2010">Libre Planet</a>
conference this year in March, there will be a
<a href="http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/Category:LibrePlanet2010_WFS">track</a>
focusing on increasing the participation of women in free software.</p>
<p>If you are able and support this cause, consider
<a href="https://my.fsf.org/associate/support_freedom/donate?benefit_of=womenscaucus">donating</a>
to fund additional women's travel to this event. Being able to meet in person
with other people like you is such an energizing opportunity. Give this gift to
someone who wouldn't otherwise be able to make it!</p>
Why ask for an unskilled, not-yet-involved comaintainer?http://blog.spang.cc/posts/Why_ask_for_an_unskilled__44___not-yet-involved_comaintainer__63__/2010-01-23T22:50:20Z2010-01-23T22:50:20Z
<p>I received a surprising 13 responses to my
<a href="http://blog.spang.cc/posts/Quodlibet:_looking_for_mentee_comaintainer/">previous post</a>,
which was certainly more than I expected and is one reason it's taken me a few
days to follow up on it. (How do you pick someone from a group of 13 people
based on just a paragraph or two? Clearly I'd like for someone to help <em>all</em> of
these people get involved in Debian, but to do so solely by myself would be
making a commitment that I just don't have time to come through on. So, it ends
up being quite arbitrary. I pick who I think I'd most like working with and
could make the most out of the opportunity, and even that is an arbitrary
judgement based on very little.)</p>
<p>One question asked by one of the people who emailed me was, "Why did you ask
for someone who isn't involved in Debian already and who doesn't necessarily
have the technical skills needed?"</p>
<p>The answer to this question has several facets.</p>
<p>For one, people already involved in a free software project tend to be busy
people. The workload in projects tends to be concentrated in few hands, and
many of those people who are already involved in a project don't need or want
any more work. So, asking for someone not already involved in Debian increases
the pool of people who might respond to such a request and actually be able to
follow up on it.</p>
<p>While this a valid reason, it still doesn't explain why I didn't just say,
"it's okay if you're not already involved in Debian or don't know python" and
not state a preference as to the skill level of the person who would respond to
such a request.</p>
<p>I did, however, have a specific reason for stating my preference. I asked
specifically for someone who wasn't already involved in Debian and who didn't
necessarily know python or consider themselves a competent programmer because I
wanted to encourage people who <em>don't</em> consider themselves to already know
enough to be a useful comaintainer to contact me. I've picked up a lot from
following <a href="http://geekfeminism.org/">Geek Feminism</a> on what sort of language
turns minority groups like women away, and I wanted to ask in such a way that
it didn't turn away people who aren't good at self-promotion or who are less
sure of their skills, <em>or</em> who don't yet have the skills, men and women alike.
Even I still sometimes internally question my own competence as a programmer,
and my self-confidence has increased over the past few years.</p>
<p>(For the curious, the responses I received were, at my guess, 85% male, 15%
female. Whether that's a success or not depends on the demographics of those
who read the post, but it <em>is</em> better than the ~98% male involvement in the
<acronym title="Free/Libre/Open Source">FLOSS</acronym> world altogether.)</p>
<p>And I do think it's more of a contribution to the project to help someone new
get involved than to try to convince someone who's already overcome the barrier
to entry to take on some more work. We'll see how it turns out in the end. I
have high hopes. (No pressure, soon-to-be-selected mentee.)</p>
FSF Women in Free Software Mini Summithttp://blog.spang.cc/posts/FSF_Women_in_Free_Software_Mini_Summit/2009-09-24T21:31:25Z2009-09-24T21:31:25Z
<p>I was one of the participants invited to the FSF's Women in Free
Software mini-summit which happened on the same day as Software Freedom
Day this year. That was this past Saturday, September 19th.</p>
<p>I was feeling hesitant going in, given the controversy over "why would
the FSF run a <em>closed</em> event about such an important topic" and just
a general burnt out feeling about the subject on my part. Honestly, I've
tended to avoid being much of a feminist in the past and simply hope
that people will stop bickering and leave me to my code, especially in
the aftermath following well-publicised incidents. This is despite the
fact that the thing that got <em>me</em> involved with free software originally
was <a href="http://women.debian.org/home/">Debian Women</a>, back in late
2004/early 2005. I needed a hook, and yet I haven't felt confident
enough to reach out to others now that I'm in.</p>
<p>I see now that there <em>are</em> valid reasons for having an event that is
purposefully small. We all fit in a nice conference room at the FSF
office, the atmosphere was very intimate, we got to learn everyone's
names (and even remember them). I met some great local free software
people who I hadn't met before. Food was take out from My Thai, an
excellent vegan restaurant in Boston's Chinatown. While it sucks to be
exclusive, in my opinion the small size really had an effect on what we
got done and how we felt at the end.</p>
<p>The official minutes from the meeting are online
<a href="http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/Womenscaucus/9.19.2009">here</a>, and there's a
picture and brief blog post from Deborah
<a href="http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/minisummitnotes">here</a>. The picture
was taken using <a href="http://projects.gnome.org/cheese/">Cheese</a>! I'm in the
middle wearing my ever-popular
<a href="http://bestpractical.com">Best Practical</a> "my free software runs your
company" t-shirt.</p>
<p>There are only a few things I want to highlight myself.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>It was a great idea to invite someone who is involved in freedom
movements but is not necessarily heavily involved in free software in
particular. Hillary brought fresh insights and helped us draw parallels
and come up with ideas that I don't think we would have thought of
otherwise. It's easy to get used to parts of a community as being
"normal" and I am so happy that we have allies who can show us where
we've internalised or just have learned to ignore sexist parts of the
community. Women in free software are already <em>in</em> free software—and we
need to learn to reach out to others who aren't in already.</p></li>
<li><p>Cooperative power. There are groups of people that just aren't
attracted by FOSS marketing that challenges you to "prove yourself the
best" or similar. Just because someone doesn't like coding at 3am
doesn't mean he doesn't like coding. If we want to succeed at our
mission, we need to stop thinking win-lose and start thinking win-win.
This applies to being more inclusive in general, not just for women. It
also applies to valuing contributions from those who don't code. We need
them too.</p></li>
<li><p>There are times when I don't speak up and I should. There are times
when I don't blog (or participate in discussions via other media)
because I don't feel like dealing with potential community backlash. I
am <em>very</em> careful about not stepping on peoples' toes, because I've seen
other people get trampled on and am not particularly excited about
experiencing that myself. While I'm trying to cultivate courage in
myself, it was good to have a reminder that it's not just me.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The current plan is to hold a bigger event that is open to all in the
spring. I am so excited about the momentum we are building! I think the
biggest thing that I took out of this is that there <em>are</em> still things
wrong with the community and that I shouldn't be afraid to speak up and
be an activist. Watching people like Deborah and Hillary talk
perfectly seriously about making very long-term plans and reaching
parity was incredibly empowering.</p>
<p>We can do so much better. The time to do it is now.</p>