[nycbug-talk] Re: Women in Open Source (fwd)

[Dru]

A few months ago, I was asked to partake in an email survey, the results 
of which are to be officially published tomorrow (and later in a print 
magazine) at:

http://pyre.third-bit.com/wios/

My final feedback to the surveyor (and their response) follows. Personally, I
find the results alarming and am interested in hearing the perspective from
the group.

While it won't come out in the article, it did bring up another slant that 
should be pursued (though I don't know how yet...) The uninformed perception
re: open source and geekdom seems to be unfairly tainted by slashdot moronics
and programmer tantrums. I've found the perception of BSD to be far more
mature. Sounds like some sort of opportunity here.

Comments?

Dru


>> It's sad that these were your findings. I guess BSD users live in a more
>> sheltered part of geek-space. While I've had to wear my flame-suit a few
>> times over technical disagreements, I've never experienced anything
>> close to sexual harrassment. My name maybe gender neutral, but the
>> community certainly knows that I'm female.

>I'm just speculating here, but I wonder if there are any connections
>between the BSD community's friendliness, the fact that it didn't
>bandwagon nearly as dramatically as some other projects, and Apple's
>adoption of it.  Apple certainly has a long history of caring more about
>"soft" issues than most other computer companies; it's hard to imagine
>that culture co-operating with the slash 'n' burn of Slashdot...

>> Small technical inaccuracy: "Mac OS X....on Linux" is like saying Al
>> Gore invented the Internet. It is BSD-based--at the very least, "Unix"
>> would be more accurate than "Linux".

>Yup, our bad --- thanks for pointing it out.