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Women's participation in GNOME and other open source communities
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Transcript of Women's participation in GNOME and other open source communities
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Women's participation in GNOME and other open source communities
Opportunities and Challenges in Asia Pacific regions.
Amanda Lam 2012.6.10
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Who is Amanda Lam?● BEng Computer Systems Engineering, University of
Warwick, UK
● Product Analyst and Technical Writer of a notable Asian job site
● Founding Member of the Hong Kong MeeGo Network
● Executive Committee Member and Podcaster of the Hong Kong PDA User Group (HKPUG)
● Blogger and gadget product reviewer
● Volunteered in unofficial Traditional Chinese localisation projects of the Maemo 4 & 5 platformsback in 2009
● Developed Maemo 5 apps for Nokia N900 with Python language and Hildon/Gtk+ frameworks, such as eSpeak GUI Client and Stroke Order Chinese Input Method
● Recipient of the Nokia N950 developer device via MeeGo Community Device Program and developed various MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan apps for Nokia N9
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Some interesting facts about women in computing...● Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) was the world's first
computer programmer!
● Sophie Wilson designed the original Acorn computer in 1978 as well as the ARM instruction set.
● Marissa Ann Mayer, Vice President of Location and Local Service of Google, designed and developed Google's search interface.
● Mary Lou Jepsen, founder of Pixel Qi and CTO of OLPC.
Image Courtesy: Wikipedia Commons
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Some interesting facts about women in computing...● In Hong Kong, % of women who
had used PCs in the last 12 months (67%) are slightly lower than % of men (70.2%) in 2009.
Women in IT: The Facts, NCWIT's Workforce Alliance
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Some interesting facts about women in F/OSS...● Only 1.5% of all Open Source Software developers are women!1
● “The Athena Factor”: Women's Creator versus Executor Roles: 2
1 Nafus, Free/Libre and Open Source Software
2 Hewlett et al, The Athena Factor
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So, what happened? Here are some reasons behind...
● Needs as users are not addressed
● Users’ discriminatory language online and offline
● The prevalence of text-based coding systems (as opposed to graphic coding environments)
● The F/OSS community’s male-centric competitive world-view
● Combative hacker ethic
● The difficulty of receiving adequate recognition for their contributions
● Less likely than men to have the level of computing expertise the F/OSS community expects of new entrants
● Women generally first engage with computers at a later age or at a less advanced level compared to men
Women in IT: The Facts, NCWIT's Workforce AllianceNafus, Free/Libre and Open Source SoftwareLin, Gender Dimension of FLOSS Development
Image Courtesy: Wikipedia Commons
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Asia-specific challenges● In Asia, women's education level and
computer literacy are not as high as men's, especially in developing countries
● Gender stereotype on women's employment and family roles
● Lack of intellectual property protection awareness
– High software piracy rate of proprietary software
– Overall ignorance on F/OSS concepts and software license terms by the general public
Image Courtesy: Wikipedia Commons
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Asia-specific challenges● Lack of user community
● Lack of contribution culture
● Sales & services oriented economic structure in some Asian countries resulted in lack of R&D culture
– User:Developer ratio is much higher
– F/OSS is not promoted by the government and in the education sectors
– Prefer short term investment with fast, guaranteed results rather thanlong term investment with slow, uncertain results
Image Courtesy: Wikipedia Commons
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Men and women have different brains!
● Men's strengths
– Better in mathematics, logic and algorithms
– Stronger sense in directions and 3D stuffs
– Better leadership skills
– Result-oriented problem-solving
● Women's strengths
– Better communication skills
– Pay more attention to details
– Process-oriented problem-solving
– More caring and sensitive to what others think
Image Courtesy: Wikipedia Commons
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What makes a great (F/OSS) product?
Great (F/OSS) Product
Quality coding
Comprehensive Testing & QA
Thorough Research& Analysis
Proper UX Research & User Testing
Easy-to-readDocumentation
Intuitive UI Design
Meaningful Translation& Localisation
Effective Marketing &Targeted Promotion
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Women with different background and expertise can definitely help to create great F/OSS products!
Great (F/OSS) Product
Quality coding
Comprehensive Testing & QA
Thorough Research& Analysis
Proper UX Research & User Testing
Easy-to-readDocumentation
Intuitive UI Design
Meaningful Translation& Localisation
Effective Marketing &Targeted Promotion
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How can we encourage more women to participate in GNOME and other F/OSS projects?
Expand the user base of GNOME & F/OSS products
● Contributors need not be having Computer Science or any IT background.
● Recommend quality F/OSS products like GNOME, GIMP, Firefox, Chromium, LibreOffice, VLC etc. to your female friends.
● Don't over-emphasise Free Software / Open Source concepts & philosophies – most of them don't even know what source code is! Emphasise the added values over proprietary equivalents.
● If they love to use the products, let users know they can actually contribute to the products they are using.
Users love the products
Users are more willing to contribute
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How can we encourage more women to participate in GNOME and other F/OSS projects?
● Adjust your attitudes!
– Great products are not only about great coding. Be less geeky! Speak Earth, human language!
– Respect women with different background, skill sets and expertise.
– Welcome newcomers and be friendly.
– Appreciate and recognise any efforts they contribute.
– Give them chance to learn more about the projects by allowing them to ask silly questions.
– Be consistent on how you communicate with women online and offline.
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GNOME Women
● A group dedicated to providing encouragement for women to contribute to GNOME
● GNOME Journal and documentation writers
● Designers for wallpapers, icons, window borders, and themes
● Translators of user interface and documentation
● Marketing material preparation
● System administration
● Newcomer orientation
● Check out more on https://live.gnome.org/GnomeWomen
Image Courtesy: GNOME Women
Image Courtesy: GNOME Women
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GNOME Women Outreach Program● The GNOME Foundation, Google,
Mozilla, Collabora, the Free Software Foundation, and Red Hat sponsored 10 internships this year.
● Projects could be coding, marketing, documentation, design etc.
● Each participant with a $5,000 (USD) stipend. $500 will be sent to participants who have begun their internships, $2250 to participants in good standing with their mentors, and $2250 to participants who have successfully completed their internships.
Image Courtesy: GNOME Women
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Ubuntu Women
● Provide mailing list, forum, IRC channel, Launchpad team and blog for Ubuntu women users and contributors.
● Projects handled by women
– Documentation for each Ubuntu release
– Wiki editing and translations● Community outreach via Full Circle
Magazine, Ubuntu Developer Summit, and mentoring programs and courses.
● Check out more on http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/
Image Courtesy: Ubuntu Women
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The Ada Initiative
● Launched in February 2011 by Valerie Aurora and Mary Gardiner, named after Ada Lovelace.
● The Ada Initiative is a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing participation of women in open technology and culture, which includes open source software, Wikipedia and other open data, and open social media.
● Conduct periodic survey of women in the open technology and culture community, designed to “take the temperature” of women’s participation in open communities.
● Key presentations
● AdaCamp Unconferences
Valerie Aurora, Linux kernel developer
Mary Gardiner, Director of Operations and Research
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~ Thank you ~Follow me at:
– Twitter: @amanda_lam
– Plurk: @amandalam
– Sina Weibo: http://weibo.com/amandalam
– LinkedIn: http://hk.linkedin.com/in/amandahoic
– Facebook: http://facebook.com/dadablog
– Blog (in Chinese): http://dadablog.net/