FLOSSPOLS Deliverable D 16 Gender: Integrated Report of Findings

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Free/Libre and Open Source Software:
Policy Support
FLOSSPOLS
Deliverable D 16 (cover page)
Gender: Integrated Report of Findings
UCAM, University of Cambridge
Contacts: Bernhard Krieger (blk20@cam.ac.uk)
James Leach (james.leach@kings.cam.ac.uk)
Document Version: Final
Due date: February 15, 2006
Submission date: March 1, 2006
Document history:
Draft version (workshop): February 3, 2006 (Month 23)
Final version Due date: February 15, 2006 (Month 24)
Final version Submission date: March 1, 2005 (Month 24)
Written by: Dawn Nafus, UCAM
James Leach, UCAM
Bernhard Krieger UCAM
Checked by Marilyn Strathern, UCAM
Rishab Ghosh; MERIT
Rüdiger Glott, MERIT
Project Officer: Tiziana Arcarese, DG INFSO, European Commission
Contract number: FP6-IST- 507524
Contract start date: March 1, 2004. End date: February 28, 2006.
Cambridge, March 2006

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Table of Contents 2
List of Figures 3
1 Executive Summary 4
1.1 Aims of the Study 4
1.2 Key Findings 4
1.3 Key Recommendations 7
2 Introduction to F/LOSS 9
3 Method of Study 11
3.1 Ethnographic and Quantitative Methods 11
3.2 The Advantages to Selected Methods 12
3.3 Limits of the Methods 14
4 Discussion of Findings 16
5 Discussion in Relation to Relevant Literature 48
6 Discussion of Recommendations 51
6.1 General Discussion of Recommendations 51
6.2 Specific Proposed Actions 55
6.3 Concluding Remarks 65
7 Recent Changes and Significant Developments for Gender Issues in F/LOSS 66
8 Appendices 70
8.1 Glossary of Terms 70
8.2 Case Studies of Diversity Contributing to Successful Technology Development 71
8.3 Further Resources for Software Development Methodologies 73
9 Bibliography 74
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List of Figures
Figure 1: Survey response to the question: For whom is it easier to get
acknowledgement for work in the F/LOSS community? (female respondents)
Figure 2: Survey response to the question: For whom is it easier to get
acknowledgement for work in the F/LOSS community? (male respondents)
Figure 3: Survey respondents to the question: Regarding the FLOSS community as a
whole, have you ever observed discriminatory behaviour against women?
Figure 4: Survey respondents to the question: Regarding your collaboration with
others during your FLOSS activities, have you ever observed or experienced
discriminatory behaviour against women?
Figure 5: Survey respondents to the questions: “From which age onwards did you use
a computer?” and “When did you have your first computer of your own?”
Figure 6: Female survey respondents to the question: Have you ever been asked for a
date by a F/LOSS participant?
Figure 7: Survey respondents to the question: In online contexts women often get
more attention as a woman rather than a F/LOSS participant.
Figure 8: Survey respondents to the question: In offline contexts women often get
more attention as a women rather than a F/LOSS participant.
Figure 9: Survey respondents to the question: What is the highest level of education
you have completed?
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1. Executive Summary
1.1 Aims of the Study
We proposed to study the role of gender in free/libre/open source software (F/LOSS)
communities because an earlier EC study (Ghosh et al 2002, 2005) revealed a
significant discrepancy in the proportion of men to women. It showed that just about
1.5% of F/LOSS community members were female at that time, compared with 28%
in proprietary software (NSF 2004). We set out to find reasons behind this bias and
make recommendations for actions that might improve the ratio of women to men. As
F/LOSS constitutes an increasingly significant arena of technological advancement
and economic development, it has become an important public policy question.
Through an ethnographic study consisting of empirical surveys, participant
observation and qualitative interviews, we aimed to provide the world’s first
comprehensive study of gender in F/LOSS and develop policies to maintain the EU’s
leading role in this field.
On the surface, it appears that few people within the community feel this gender
disproportion is desirable: our survey showed that 66% of men and 85% of women
agreed that more female participants would be better for the whole F/LOSS
community. This led us to pay particular attention to the social dynamics within
F/LOSS that keep it so thoroughly male dominated, at the same time as the majority
of participants express a preference for a more balanced community.
1.2 Key Findings
Listed below are the factors significant in excluding women from F/LOSS
communities. These factors are nearly all underwritten by a central cultural dynamic
within F/LOSS. F/LOSS participants, as in most scientific cultures, view technology
as an autonomous field, separate from people. This means that anything they interpret
as ‘social’ is easily dismissed as ‘artificial’ social conditioning. Because this
‘conditioning’ is considered more or less arbitrary, in their view it is supposed to be
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easily cast aside by individuals choosing to ignore it. F/LOSS also has a deeply
voluntarist ethos which values notions of individual autonomy and volition. As a
result participants largely do not believe that gender has anything to do with their
own individual actions. The situation is thereby perpetuated in spite of the expressed
desire for change.
1.2.1 Women are actively (if unconsciously) excluded rather than passively
disinterested. The effect lies within F/LOSS cultural and social arrangements.
The exclusion happens among people who often do not mean to appear, and who
do not interpret their own actions, as hostile to women. The effect is an outcome
of the importance given to the individual as the sole carrier of agency.
1.2.2 F/LOSS communities actively perpetuate a ‘hacker’ ethic, which situates
itself outside the ‘mainstream’ sociality, but equates women with that
mainstream. Women are treated as either alien Other or (in online contexts) are
assumed to be male and thus made invisible. Women are seen as innately more
able to organise, communicate and negotiate among F/LOSS projects as well as
with the outside world. Thereby they become carriers of sociality that is seen in
a contrast to the 'technical' realm ascribed to men. Additionally F/LOSS women
receive a high level of attention due to their gender which decreases their
feeling of acceptance as community members as well as their willingness to
further engage with the community.
1.2.3 F/LOSS rewards the producing code rather than the producing software.
It thereby puts most emphasis on a particular skill set. Other activities such as
interface design or documentation are understood as less 'technical' and
therefore less prestigious. This has consequences both for the lower valuation of
activities in which F/LOSS women often engage as well as for the software itself
which often is still oriented more towards the developer rather than the user.
1.2.4 F/LOSS production and infrastructure is designed and built assuming
contributors have a long history with computers, but women tend to engage later
in their lives with computers. In order to join women have a larger amount of
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catching up work to do, which they must do in an environment that almost
exclusively values independent discovery.
1.2.5 Inflammatory talk and aggressive posturing (‘flaming’) is accepted within
many F/LOSS projects as a key means of developing reputation. Whereas more
established F/LOSS members engage less in ‘flame wars’, people still
establishing their reputation often use them as a platform to make themselves
visible. This is often off-putting for newcomers and less experienced
contributors who are not yet familiar with the community, its norms, or its real
hierarchy. The effect is particularly pronounced in the case of women, who in
most cases have a shorter history in computing and therefore less confidence in
defending themselves on technical grounds. ‘Flaming’ thus exacerbates the
confidence difficulties women tend to have as a result of lower levels of
previous computing experiences.
1.2.6 The reliance on long hours of intensive computing in writing successful
code means that men, who in general assume that time outside of waged labour
is ‘theirs’, are freer to participate than women, who normally still assume a
disproportionate amount of domestic responsibilities. Female F/LOSS
participants, however, seem to be able to allocate a disproportionate larger
share of their leisure time for their F/LOSS activities. This gives an indication
that women who are not able to spend as much time on voluntary activities have
difficulties to integrate into the community.
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1.3 Key Recommendations
Because of the central dynamic of individualism and dismissal of ‘the social’, we
recommend that public policy action should emphasise the technological gains that
could be made if F/LOSS had a larger and more diverse developer base. Based on
this approach, we recommend the following (which are elaborated and given as
detailed suggestions in the main body of the report (see Section 6):Provide tangible
resources to help women devote time to their F/LOSS activities. This means both
funding helping women to take part at specific F/LOSS events, as well as continuous
support to enable women to take part in F/LOSS projects over a longer period of
time.
1.3.1 Provide tangible resources to help women devote time to their F/LOSS
activities. This means both funding helping women to take part at specific
F/LOSS events, as well as continuous support to enable women to take part in
F/LOSS projects over a longer period of time..
1.3.2 Foster the participation of girls in F/LOSS activities at an early age.
1.3.3 Provide support for the efforts to increase female participation that are
already taking place within F/LOSS.
1.3.4 The European Commission, and EU Governments should use their
commissioning role to encourage a greater variety of working methods in the
production of software.
1.3.5 Modify the criteria for the selection of software products supported by the
European Commission to ensure encouragement is given to those who
positively include women in technical roles or offer other means of support for
encouraging girls and women to enter computing.
1.3.6 Sponsor exchange programs or joint projects with parts of the world
where coding is not axiomatically gendered as a ‘male’ activity.
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1.3.7 Create a greater understanding, through research and dissemination of
projects where technological success was achieved because of diversity.
1.3.8 Encourage individuals in leadership positions to recognise that people
are being actively put off, not just failing to choose to participate, and that this
has a long term cost to F/LOSS development.
1.3.9 Foster a greater role for F/LOSS in European innovation policy, and
specifically in university technology transfer activities.
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2. Introduction to F/LOSS
Free / libre / open source software (F/LOSS) groups and projects are self-declared
‘communities’ which see themselves as providing a better alternative to the way in
which software is traditionally produced and distributed. A central component of the
F/LOSS ethos is that working openly and sharing the source code of software enables
improvements to evolve more effectively, and that as a whole ‘better’ software is
produced. The ‘free’ in free software is envisioned as part of a broader ethos of
freedom of speech and volition rather than a reference to price. The key notion is
“Free as in free speech not as in free beer.” French language here makes the
distinction more accurately—libre rather than gratis. Promoters of ’logiciel libre’
(free software) refer to ethics as necessary for participation. Indeed, the term ‘open
source’ tends to be used in more commercial contexts and free or libre in public
advocacy modes. While some developers are less interested in these distinctions, they
do share a rather consuming enthusiasm for the idea that coding is its own moral
reward.
F/LOSS is usually associated with its take on intellectual property rights, but it is also
a system of production that has been variously likened to a gift economy (Raymond
1998), a guild system (Coleman 2001) a barter economy (Ghosh 1998) and kinship
system (Zeitlyn 2003). It can be described as a flexible network of individuals who
work in a state of co-ordinated independence. Stephen Weber describes it as:
“an emerging technological community that seemed to solve what I see
as very tricky but basically familiar governance problems in a very
unfamiliar and intriguing way. In the end I’ve decided (…) that the
open source community has done something even more important. By
experimenting with fundamental notions of what constituted property,
this community has reframed and recast some of the most basic
problems of governance” (Weber 2004:vii).
F/LOSS development involves a hybrid mix of institutions. Some firms make the
development of open source software their business (e.g. MySQL AB), while others
such as IBM opt for implementing and servicing F/LOSS products. Development
projects within universities and research institutes such as the Institut Pasteur also
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make software available under a F/LOSS licence. Traditionally, however, it has been
individuals who contribute outside of their capacities as private or public sector
employees or students.
Although total numbers of participants are hard to come by, projects can range from
one or two people to several thousands (e.g. in the case of Debian). As Krishnamurthy
(2002) and Comino et al (2005) observe, only about 4% of projects have more than
seven people working on them. However, at this point it is impossible to tell whether
the majority of contributors are in fact concentrated in larger projects. It is probable
that this is the case, as projects with larger numbers of developers are more likely to
be downloaded (Krishnamurthy 2002), and usage is the most common entry point for
becoming a contributor.
Contributors are normally at some geographic distance from one another.
Communication takes place largely online via Internet Relay Chat (IRC), mailing
lists, blogs (often connected to large projects via RSS feeds) or websites (e.g. wikis).
On the other hand there is also significant face to face activity within local Linux User
Groups (LUGs), advocacy groups or people interested in a certain programming
language. Furthermore there are large and small conferences across the globe where
participants get together to further their projects.
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3. Method of Study
3.1 Ethnographic and Quantitative Methods
This report primarily relies on anthropological research carried out amongst F/LOSS
participants in France and other parts of Europe in 2004 and 2005. For readers
unfamiliar with ethnographic work we highlight here some of the salient points of
ethnography as the epistemological vehicle through which we have made our
evaluations. Although ethnography has been appropriated into other disciplines as
shorthand for detailed observational work, in the original sense used here ethnography
additionally implies both an interpretive epistemology and reflexivity. In this case
Krieger conducted unstructured and semi-structured interviews, but also met
participants in private homes, pubs, bars and restaurants, observed and participated in
F/LOSS projects both electronically and face to face, was in touch with companies
which used open source software in their business and attended conferences as well as
free software advocacy events. These activities variously used French, German and
English. Krieger also learned the basics of the technical terminology and languages so
that he could better understand the communication within the community. We have
closely followed Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and
Commonwealth’s ethical guidelines (1999) in this work. In addition, one of our key
informants, Hanna Wallach, has actively participated in the analysis process.
We also employed quantitative research methodology. We conducted a quantitative
survey on gender among F/LOSS contributors. The survey was carried out online and
encompassed 1541 participants
3.2 The Advantages to Selected Methods
The close personal involvement of ethnographic research enables the researcher to
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experience others’ points of view, and forces him or her to challenge assumptions
embedded in both previous research and their own cultural expectations. Unlike the
survey data, where claims to generality can be made via mathematical operations,
generalising from ethnographic work is done via interpretation as in the humanities.
The strength of ethnography is in identifying assumed positions and concepts, but it is
important to emphasise that this does not mean that its significance is limited to the
cases it studies. Instead, interpreting what the researcher observes and experiences
involves drawing out the connections between the field site and the models produced
by other researchers in other locations (see Strathern 1999).
The ethnographic approach has helped us identify issues with EU-wide implications.
We have interpreted our observations in the light of similar studies on gender and
technology undertaken in other parts of the world and make reference to this
corroborating evidence where appropriate.
This interpolation has been especially important because F/LOSS is essentially a
trans-national community. Although a lot of the offline parts of the fieldwork have
been undertaken in France, parts of it were also conducted in other European
countries (England, Wales, Germany and the Netherlands) as well as other countries
(North America and India). The theoretical frameworks that we have interpreted our
findings through come from research based all over Europe and North America.
Indeed, all the research sites are suffused with all sorts of transnational connections.
There is a tendency in EU research discourse to conceive of social borders as national
borders. In the case of F/LOSS this is misguided, as it is a community that largely
conceives of itself in global terms. Transnational / networked identities are vital; this
report takes as given that the social world in which our informants act is suffused with
this complexity. In addition, people move rapidly between projects and institutional
arrangements, which makes forms of institutional ‘locality’ inappropriate units of
analysis when it comes to questions that permeate the whole community, such as
gender. Therefore our analysis takes place at the level of a F/LOSS ‘community’
discourse and practice.
Women in F/LOSS are rare. At the beginning of the research most interaction with
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women in the community took place online, either on IRC or via email.
Mixing quantitative and qualitative methods has proved to be a robust way of
approaching social science problems, as each raises issues the other necessarily
overlooks (Anderson and Tracey 2002). As with Anderson and Tracey’s work, we
mixed methods iteratively. The research topic was identified through previous
quantitative work (Ghosh et al 2002). The early stages of ethnographic fieldwork
suggested potential topics for further quantitative investigation, the results of which
prompted us to re-interpret certain qualitative findings. Because surveys are limited in
the kinds of phenomena they can address, the quantitative work acts as a supplement
in this project rather than as a ‘validator’.
Much of the literature on gender and technology argues for getting past dualities of
masculinity and femininity (see section 5). For this study, getting past dualities also
meant looking beyond that which is understood as gender, and to examine more
broadly the social and cultural aspects of F/LOSS. The conditions of gendering are
the same for people before they choose to enter F/LOSS, and these are well
understood (see Sorensen 2002, Ahuja 2002, Dryburgh 2000, Spilker & Sorensen
2000 for reviews). Whatever it is that produces the strong male dominance within
F/LOSS is likely to be related to its community dynamics. For this reason we have
also drawn on the anthropology of personhood and morality. Most studies about
gender and technology do not explore these other issues; here we argue that while
femininity, masculinity and technology are in fact co-produced, it is also vital to
understand the terms on which these productions are made salient. We have found
that concepts of personhood and personal agency make gender important in
culturally-specific ways (see section 4.1).
Similarly, we found that most of the gender and technology scholarship tends to not
address or take seriously indigenous explanations of gender difference, as if the
people under study did not have their own understandings of how social relations
work. Indeed in one study Wilson (2003) bemoaned how female computer science
students were delusionally complicit in their own disadvantage without exploring
what is at stake in the supposed ‘complicity’. We feel this is related to the relative
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inattention given to notions of personal agency, which in the instance of F/LOSS at
least both shapes gender differences and limits the kinds of public policy solutions
available.
3.3 Limits of the Methods
F/LOSS women proved challenging to identify, as they are few in number but also
because some of them assume gender-neutral or masculine online identities. This
hindered somewhat both qualitative and quantitative work. It was even more difficult
to identify participants who had left F/LOSS.
We were also limited by the range of projects we studied qualitatively. This was not a
project study per se, such as the numerous studies of F/LOSS projects (e.g.
Hemetsberger and Reinhardt, 2004, Garzarelli and Galoppini 2003, Ratto 2003). The
justification for this is as follows. We worked with individuals involved in a range of
projects, some smaller, some larger. Current research shows that people engage in
several projects at any one time. Contributors have different roles depending on which
project they are contributing to. Furthermore projects are not necessarily independent
from each other in terms of code either. Code is reused in different projects.
Furthermore projects often necessarily collaborate with other projects so that
boundaries are not always clear (e.g. see the Free Desktop projects in which
contributors to all major Linux desktops are taking part). Most of our key informants
work either in several projects in parallel or did so in past.
One of our key informants who became an unofficial research assistant is a Debian
Women activist. Although we have enough familiarity with a wide range of activities
to know what is particular to Debian and what exists across F/LOSS, nevertheless this
background is bound to have had an influence.
Another limitation was that there was no psychological expertise on the team. In the
analysis period we came to understand that for many in the F/LOSS community,
gender disparity could be explained by the recognition that F/LOSS may contain a
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disproportion of people on the autistic spectrum. It is currently also commonly
understood that there is a disproportionate number of males to females who are on
this spectrum. The active disassociation with the ‘social’ we understand as a socially
constructed way of performing a particular kind of masculine and individualist
identity. However, it is entirely possible that for a minority this dissociation goes
beyond issues of social identity given that autism has been correlated with males in
mathematical and engineering fields in higher education (Baron-Cohen et al 1997).1
Although we accept that, from a medical anthropology point of view, such
psychological diagnoses themselves sometimes constitute cultural practices of
pathologising that which is considered socially unacceptable, we have no evidence
that could dismiss an autism link out of hand. Addressing the potential ramifications
of this is beyond our expertise. However, the consistency that characterizes a hostile
environment for women in F/LOSS suggests a cultural configuration that extends well
beyond possible links with something called autism. Therefore we do not feel this
limitation constitutes an outright hindrance to this study.
1 While some scholarship on autism points to an explanation similar to the
ideas of F/LOSS participants we heard, there is disagreement among experts as to the
influence of social factors on the phenomenon.
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4. Discussion of Findings
4.1 Women are actively (if unconsciously) excluded rather than passively
disinterested. The effect lies within F/LOSS cultural and social arrangements.
The exclusion happens among people who often do not mean to appear, and who
do not interpret their own actions, as hostile to women. The effect is an outcome
of the importance given to the individual as the sole carrier of agency.
One of the documents newcomers to F/LOSS encounter is a Portrait of J. Random
Hacker, written by one of the most vocal F/LOSS members, Eric Raymond. A
section addresses gender:
“Hackerdom is still predominantly male. However, the percentage of women is
clearly higher than the low-single-digit range typical for technical professions, and
female hackers are generally respected and dealt with as equals….
…When asked, hackers often ascribe their culture's gender- and color-blindness to
a positive effect of text-only network channels, and this is doubtless a powerful
influence. Also, the ties many hackers have to AI research and SF literature may
have helped them to develop an idea of personhood that is inclusive rather than
exclusive -- after all, if one's imagination readily grants full human rights to future
AI programs, robots, dolphins, and extraterrestrial aliens, mere color and gender
can't seem very important any more.”
Our quantitative research shows that Raymond is wrong on the numbers. The
disproportionate dominance of men in the F/LOSS survey (Ghosh et al 2002), where
hacker identities are by far more pervasive, was the reason for the study (see Aims of
Research). When F/LOSS members discuss the absence of women, a popular
explanation is that they are simply not interested. While there are social reasons why
women tend not to show an interest (which will be explicated in the course of the
report—see especially section 5), the link between early enthusiasm for technology
use and the decision to enter technological professions is not an automatic one.
Current trends indicate that while consumer usage is on the whole widening (Shade
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2004, Sorensen 2002), this is not successfully bringing more women into the pipeline
of ICT careers generally, as well as F/LOSS activities in particular. The proportion of
women in ICT professions, both academic and commercial, is actually going down
(National Science Foundation 2004, Sorensen 2002), which suggests to us that the
more significant factor is the hostile environment women face once they do get into
ICT work roles. It is not that ‘technical’ jobs fail to appeal to women from an early
age. So few women in F/LOSS relative to other models of software production
suggests that F/LOSS somehow exacerbates a hostile environment.
The ethical value system of the community is based upon what participants refer to as
freedom understood in the notion of each individual´s possibility to choose. They
thereby refer to the individual as the decisive carrier of agency. The community very
much values the notion that ‘anyone’ can start tinkering (with software) and that
participation is volitional. This starts with the users of F/LOSS who are given the
choice of applications, provided with a maximum amount of configurability and
equipped with the freedom of modification. The notion of choice becomes even more
important when it comes to the producers of the software. Anybody is free to join and
participate in a project or to start a new project out of an existing project’s source
code. Indeed with a social structure that relies heavily on voluntary labour there are
no formal sanctions against those determined to participate in their own way. From
our informants’ perspective the problem is not one of opportunities but one of choice.
As a consequence most F/LOSS participants think that it is the women who decide by
their own free volition not to contribute. There is a strong desire to believe that gender
has nothing to do with the choices people make because it threatens this notion of
individual autonomy. This desire is not entirely limited to F/LOSS. In Nafus’s study
of a UK software firm (forthcoming), there was a near complete gendered division of
labour. The (male) developers sat on one side of the room while the (female) testers
sat on another, yet so important was the notion of individual choice that the whole
office maintained that this was mere coincidence.
The overall agreement within the realm of F/LOSS production is that the best
technical solution determines the further development steps within F/LOSS
production. Therefore it is the people who have proven their abilities and who are
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believed to be able to provide these best technical solutions who determine F/LOSS
projects. Participants often refer to this form of political organisation as meritocracy.
According to them it is a fair and equal way of coming to decisions since everybody
has the means to provide the best solution: source code, mailing list archives and
documentation of the technical tools needed to create software. Although many
women do talk about the subtle ways that men made it difficult for ‘just anyone’ to
contribute, from women’s perspectives too the meritocratic ideal was not something
they wanted to change.2 But the men particularly felt that there was already equality
of opportunity.
However women and men within F/LOSS do fundamentally differ in the way in
which they participate. Both our qualitative as well as our quantitative research points
to the fact that men tend to pick up the more prestigious technical tasks. Men are
overrepresented in activities such as coding, testing, as well as reading and writing
bug reports. All these activities are closely related to the production of source code.
On the other hand women are more likely to engage in the less technical aspects of
F/LOSS production. They engage more in documenting, providing graphics and
sounds, moderating mailing lists and organising workshops. In most projects these
activities are considered to be less crucial and are, therefore, less prestigious (see.
4.2).
As a consequence women feel that their work is less acknowledged than that of men.
Almost 2/3 of all female participants think that it is easier for men to get
acknowledgement for their F/LOSS contributions.
2 Indeed one of our female informants working in the software industry sees this
meritocratic model as a possibility to overcome a common barrier in the corporate
business world which she described as a glass ceiling .
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62.5 4.5
33
For men
For women
Nobody car es whether y ou
are a man or a woman
Figure 1: Survey response to the question: For whom is it easier to get acknowledgement for
work in the F/LOSS community? (female respondents)
Interestingly more than 4/5 of the male respondents think that gender does not play a
role.
13
5.8
81.2
For men
For women
Nobody car es whether y ou
are a man or a woman
Figure 2: Survey response to the question: For whom is it easier to get acknowledgement for
work in the F/LOSS community? (male respondents)
Participants of the F/LOSS community (male and female) do see there is a gender
difference in the types of activity that people engage in. However they attribute this
difference to individual choice and thereby make gender invisible.
Women’s support activists have found that attempts to raise awareness about the
issues facing women are taken as ‘ungrounded’ accusations, and the response within
the community is usually that community members simply lack experience with
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women. It is social incompetence, not deliberate exclusion. But over-riding this
perception is the more powerful thought that in the end, technical skill is the crucial
factor for inclusion, and thus the community is gender-blind in its significant
practices.
Some people—both men and women—interpret the mere mention of gender as
somehow ‘reiterating’ the ‘artificial’ differences between the sexes. This, for
example, is taken from a F/LOSS blog posting:
“I think the whole idea of ‘Debian Women’ is flawed. All it does is
give / reiterate to people the idea that women are somehow different
to men when it comes to computers and should be treated
differently.” 3
And from the same blog…
“Instead of saying “Linux geeks should be nicer to newbies,” [the
article] says “Guys should be nicer to women.” No…to ask for
different treatment for different genders is SEXIST, and when the
stated goal is to minimize sexism, it becomes counter-productive.”
Having made analysis of copious material collected during the study, we interpret
these kind of (common) statements as follows. The logic goes something like this: if
difference in technical competence is not biologically based (women can be as good
as men at coding), then F/LOSS members interpret it gender in this context as ‘mere’
social conditioning, which for them constitutes grounds to dismiss it as not only
arbitrary, but easily overcome through sheer individual volition. That is, women
becoming technically competent and thereby disproving the biological basis for
difference is the answer, and this is based on individual decisions by those women to
devote themselves as men have had to.
3 We would like to clearly mention that despite an initial period of doubt,
discussion and reluctance from some Debian developers, the Debian Women project
now gets support from some of its very senior male members. Participants in the
project consider this support as crucial for the success of Debian Women to bring
more female contributors into Debian.
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

21
However, our study also found that the attitude of some of the male F/LOSS
participants towards women creates an atmosphere which can be described at least as
not women-friendly.
Whereas most hackers see themselves as neither sexist nor hostile towards women
there is a clear distinction on how women and men perceive and experience
interaction within the F/LOSS community. We found that women and men evaluate
the behaviour of male participants in the community differently. This is the case both
for their interaction within the general F/LOSS universe as well as within the
respective projects in which they collaborate. In our survey almost all female
participants have observed or experienced discriminatory behaviour against
themselves or other women in the general F/LOSS community, but only 1/5 of all
men reported to have perceived discriminatory behaviour against women. Also within
their projects more than half of the women observed or experienced discriminative
behaviour against women, but only about one out of ten men had the same perception.
Yes No
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
65
70
75
80
Men
Women
Figure 3: Survey respondents to the question: Regarding the FLOSS community as a whole,
have you ever observed discriminatory behaviour against women?
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

22
Yes No
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
65
70
75
80
85
90
Men
Women
Figure 4: Survey respondents to the question: Regarding your collaboration with others during
your FLOSS activities, have you ever observed or experienced discriminatory behaviour
against women?
Derogative behaviour is often not understood as such. It is in many cases expressed in
the form of jokes. At a large F/LOSS conference, for instance, somebody tried to
motivate people to take part in a competition for a particular project by announcing
the winning prize would be a date out with a beautiful, blonde girl. When a woman
who attended the conference because she was interested in the topic of F/LOSS and
wanted to get involved in it objected, she was misinterpreted. As a reply she only
received: “Oh, this is just a joke.” However, it is this type of joke which make women
feel uncomfortable in the community. Female informants often report misogynist
jokes. One of our interview partners, for instance, reported an experience she had in
an IRC channel:
“One IRC channel I used frequently made jokes about rapes. I had a huge
growl with somebody about this and I was a long time member in this channel.
The joker was a newcomer and I personally think I have contributed a lot more
than he had. At one stage he ended up telling me, if I couldn’t “stand the heat I
should get out of the kitchen” and then I said, “What would you say for
example if I said that I had been raped and I took exception to be used as a
subject of humour?” and he said: “that’s too bad but, you need to learn to live
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

23
with it”.
nother informant adds to the same topic women being subject of jokes:
“Because even if you are joking, even if you think you are funny, she has at's
ontributors have talked about how this behaviour is as at odds with what they call
is this mixture of on the one hand valuing individual technical performance at all
F/LOSS communities actively perpetuate a ‘hacker’ ethic, which situates itself
be
e
A
heard it 15 million times before and it get's really boring really fast. And th
something that most of the guys [...] just don't realise about at all because [...]
they have never asked how it is like to be in a less then half percent minority.
And they just don't realise that making comments like that on channel or off
channel is just really, really frustrating.”
C
their own ‘ideology’ or ‘feminism’—e.g., the notion that women should have just as
many choices in life as men. The ‘inclusive’ personhood that Raymond talks about in
the Portrait of J. Random Hacker is inclusive of individuals imagined not to contain
social (i.e. gendered) ties. The acknowledgement that there are gender differences in
practice sits uncomfortably and is often perceived as divisive in itself, as we have
seen.
It
costs and on the other hand ascribing the reasons of non-involvement of women to
their individual choice, which makes it difficult for women to fully take part in the
F/LOSS community.
4.2
outside the ‘mainstream’ sociality, but equates women with that mainstream.
Women are treated as either alien Other or (in online contexts) are assumed to
male and thus made invisible. Women are seen as innately more able to organise,
communicate and negotiate among F/LOSS projects as well as with the outside
world. Thereby they become carriers of sociality that is seen in a contrast the
'technical' realm ascribed to men. Additionally F/LOSS women receive a high
level of attention due to their gender which decreases their feeling of acceptanc
as community members as well as their willingness to further engage with the
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

24
community.
/LOSS members more strongly associate with the notion of being a hacker than
ular
How to
's work
rts
our context, however, it is important to understand that a hacker identity acts for
ll
kers
F
others working in a proprietary software environment. The term 'hacker' is certainly
one of the most debated among members of the community itself and we would
certainly not want to propose a distinctive category. Everybody we encountered
during our research was able to define 'hackers' for themselves in contrast to pop
notions communicated within the mass media: Hackers are not people breaking into
computer systems to steal, corrupt or destroy data. These people are called 'crackers'
by our participants. However there is a debate about a positive definition of what a
'real' hacker is. Eric Raymond’s documents, already referred to, are the most
commonly referred to within the community itself, and include the ‘manual’ '
become a Hacker', the 'Portrait of J. Random Hacker' (see above) and the 'Jargon
File'. These documents have been criticised, mostly by older members of the
community, who would not subscribe to Raymond's view. However Raymond
is still considered by many as seminal on this subject and still does contribute hugely
to an understanding of ethics within the community. Some of our more experienced
informants described Raymond's work as influential and revealing when they first
began to realise there was a distinct social group emerging. Whereas there are effo
within the community itself to unlock the term 'hacker' from Raymond's often elitist
and libertarian avant-garde understanding, his ideas have, nevertheless, colonised the
discourse and are still influential particularly among newer members of the
community trying to find orientation.
In
many as a social model which largely corroborates other studies of ‘hackers’ (Kenda
2000, Hapnes and Sorensen 1995 Turkle 1998, Kleif and Faulkner 2002, Faulkner
2000). We must be clear that hackerdom is a model that both informs behaviour and
serves as a tool with which people make sense of it, not an accurate evaluation of all
persons at all times (see section 5). Hackers think of themselves as intentionally
different from mainstream. Raymond states this clearly in the Jargon File: “[H]ac
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

25
as a group are particularly creative people who define themselves partly by rejection
of ‘normal’ values and working habits, it has unusually rich and conscious traditions
for an intentional culture less than 50 years old.” (Jargon File Chapter 1) They have a
clear idea of who is outside and who is inside. The inappropriate usage of slang is
seen as an indication that somebody is not a hacker: “[N]ot knowing the slang (or
using it inappropriately) defines one as an outsider.” (ibid) Counter terms such as
'suits' or 'wannabees' are used to distinguish 'hackers' from the mainstream.
In the hacker model gender performances are also performances of alterity. The
s
of
daily – far
“At the beginning I really had a hard time coping with that. One was
nother imilar experience:
was trained to be one via
t
masculinity performed in F/LOSS is a very specific kind of masculinity. It define
itself in contradistinction to ‘hegemonic masculinity’ (Kendall 2000) or what
participants read as ‘mainstream’. This constitutes a vocabulary of embodied
interactions, both in terms of interacting with the computer and bodily markers
alterity. For example, in the Paris fieldwork about half of the male F/LOSS
participants we encountered during our research had beards or do not shave
more than the average of men in Paris. During meetings and conferences there are
many participants who come in T-Shirts, jeans and trainers, which in Paris is not
common attire among professional people. There is a performed differentiation in
style. On the other hand the T-Shirts often express people’s affiliation to a specific
software project or advocacy group. This dress code is adapted by women active in
the field as well. During our fieldwork we have encountered many women who dress
accordingly. For women, there is an ancillary effect, however. That is making gender
difference as invisible as possible. One of our informants described feeling a strong
pressure to make herself invisible as a woman in the very male environment of her
computer science education:
looked at whenever one wore tight clothes or comments were made
when one wore a short skirt.”
female participant describes a sA
“I was always in groups of boys since I was little, I
osmosis in a certain way. (...) I know how this works in professional and
friendship relationships, etc. because I was basically transparent as a girl in
groups of boys. I was not a girl. ... [T]here was a very violent environmen
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

26
where one had to be either engendered male or well neutralised. (...) This
concerned clothing, make up, and everything which was perceived as signs
of female seduction in our society.”
eldwork we encountered many womeIn our fi n dressing or behaving in what they
n
in
his very particular alternative masculinity is performed as a type of alterity. Similar
ty. It
ale F/LOSS participants often describe this difference as a lack of social
some
of
n the other hand “being social” is something which is ascribed to women in a
f
r
“There is always the danger that you get reduced to that in the sense 'Get
women into your project because they know how to calm people down.
do
hat
describe as a “male” way. What seems like a precondition for women to take part i
the F/LOSS universe acts as a barrier for women who do not abandon signs of
femininity. Female informants reported psychological pressure women did face
their computer science classes to submit in such de-gendering process.
T
to Hapnes and Sorensen’s findings on Norwegian hackers (1995) this alterity is used
to confirm each other’s individuality and uniqueness, in contrast to both a rather
mysterious ‘all-maleness’ of ‘mainstream’ men as well as to an assumed feminini
is often part of free software hackers’ biographies that during childhood and
adolescence they had been different to other members of their age group.
M
competence and interest in different activities than mainstream people. For
people F/LOSS seems to provide a platform on which one could stand outside the
social constraints of ‘mainstream culture’. For them F/LOSS is an environment in
which common rules of courtesy and accepted forms of communication – as a form
sociality – do not necessarily have to be fulfilled (see section 4.5).
O
somewhat naturalising way. Women are perceived as, and made to be, carriers o
“sociality” in that they are expected to be more sensitive and able to deal with othe
people. One female participant described that effect in the following way:
They are nice and can do all the diplomatic stuff. They will make your
project nice. Women always pick up the mediator roles.' Women tend to
that. They tend to mediate in between people in the form of: 'I am sure t
he did not mean it that way. Try it again.' Typical female role. Yes, we do
that, and we do that quite successfully. But this won't be new to come up. It
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

27
is not about bringing women into projects to make projects nicer. This is
again reducing women. Of course women do not have better social skills but
they are probably more interested in keeping things in harmony.”
Women are constructed as a foil in imagining what it means to be a hacker. They are
is
ithin the community it has been often commented by both men and women that if
trate
hese findings are not independent of other research. Some studies of women in
his way of constructing women as carriers of social relations sets up the basis for the
on
omen in F/LOSS, as in other areas of science and engineering, face an enormous
y,
11% ‘often’ (See Figure 6).
perceived as carriers of sociality, which shows up hackers’ own displays of wilful
social ‘incompetence’. Interesting here in particular is an understanding of a
`technical´ sphere that is separate of a `social´ sphere. Whereas the men’s role
typically in the former, women are understood as being active in the latter.
W
hackers could learn the ‘rules’ of social interaction—e.g., interaction with both
‘mainstream’ men and women, that the chilly culture facing women would be
alleviated. Although the ‘remedy’ is not at all a simple solution, it does demons
just how interlinked concepts of gender and concepts of alterity are in this
community.
T
computer cultures, such as Turkle (1998) and Wilson (2003), point to how women on
computer science courses use their social connections with others to actively contrast
themselves with the men on their course, exaggerating the lack of men’s social ties.
These women highlight the long hours at the computer without any ‘social’
interaction as an unsavoury aspect of computing.
T
discriminatory environment women face. It limits the roles they perform within
F/LOSS (see section 4.3) and turns experience gaps into a serious obstacle (secti
4.4).
W
amount of sexual attention. In our survey we found that almost half (48 %) of all
F/LOSS women have been asked out on a date by other members of the communit
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

28
Figure 6: asked for a date by
a F/LOSS
telling is that 2/3 of women and men think that it is very
r mainly true that in online contexts women receive more attention because of their
).
Figure 7: Survey respondents to the question: In online contexts women often get more
attention as a woman rather than a F/LOSS participant.
Female survey respondents to the question: Have you ever been
participant?
hat is perhaps even moreW
o
gender than as a F/LOSS contributor. In offline contexts women feel this attention
even more. More than ¾ of all women think that it is very or mainly true that they get
more attention as a woman than as a F/LOSS participant. (see Figure 7 and Figure 8
Men
11.4
36.2 52.4
Yes, that happens quite of-
ten.
Yes, but that happens
seldom.
No
55
50
45
40
35
30
Very true
Mainly true
25
Mainly false
Comletely fals e
20
15
10
5
0Women
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

29
ontexts women often get more
attention as a woman rather than a F/LOSS participant.
These num
ore
sexuality m
from
an disrupt mentoring relations and communication in general. Some women reported
at in situations where there is idle chat, it was quite common that as soon as it
y
l’
female activities and ways of self-presentation. For example, not having played with
Men Women
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
Very true
Mainly true
Mainly false
Comletely fals e
Figure 8: Survey respondents to the question: In offline c
bers resonate with the ethnographic work, where women related their
experiences of prolific sexual attention, and men too relayed to us their observations
about how women are sexualised in F/LOSS. While there are examples of outright
offensive online postings on F/LOSS websites such as Slashdot, what seemed m
generally off-putting was the way in which the perception of women as carriers of
akes them feel alien and Other. Similarly, the authors of the ‘HOWTO
Encourage Women in Linux’ website actually felt the need to remind men to refrain
pointing when a women comes along to meetings.
Not only does the frequency of sexual propositioning make women feel alien, but it
c
th
becomes evident that a woman is not interested in a sexual relationship, that men
often lose interest in building up a rapport.
The women reporting these problems already inhabit and identify with highly
masculine social worlds. Often it is the same women who in interviews tended to sa
that they usually have more male friends, and who quite vocally reject ‘stereotypica
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

30
Barbie as a child was often spoken of as a point of pride. Consider this excerpt from
an interview with K.:
“I actually did not look for a women’s project because I felt
quite comfortable within the normal community. I had normal
user problems. You get in contact with people and at some point
it becomes clear that you are female and the conversation
changes. It never bothered me. I just thought that there are some
weird people everywhere so I did not feel completely disturbed
by that. But I think it does keep other women from doing Linux
stuff because of these experiences.”
ey nevertheless have that effect (see section 4.1).
Women n our female
informant vice 'as a
woman'. F that they have
been repe it, : “I
don't mind you have
done so a ly possible.”
Even someone like K., who is normally quite comfortable in the F/LOSS
environment, still feels the terms of relationships shift once gender becomes apparent.
When gender becomes apparent, it begins to dominate relations. In these
circumstances, when ‘jokes’ about sex or gender are made, even if the intention is not
to exclude or harass, th
ot only get attention as women in a sexualised sense. Some of
s also reported being placed in motherly roles and asked to give ad
urthermore we have been told by some female participants
atedly consulted for dress advice by complete strangers. As K put
giving these tips once in a while. The problem is only that once
chnical discussion is thereafter rarete
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

31
4.3 F/LOSS rewards the producing code rather than the producing software. It
thereby puts most emphasis on a particular skill set. Other activities such as
interface design or documentation are understood as less 'technical' and
therefore less prestigious. This has consequences both for the lower valuaion of
activities in which F/LOSS women often engage as well as for the software itself
which often is still oriented more towards the developer rather than the user.
The surest path to authority and reputation building in F/LOSS is through what
participants often describe as ‘technical expertise’. Although career paths vary
substantially, many programmers start with submitting bug fixes and coding small
features. Non-coding work, such as documentation, is often treated as an afterthought
within F/LOSS projects. There are, however, notable exceptions such as the desktop
project KDE and the Linux distribution Ubuntu, which have started to make use of the
fuller repertoire of skills (see section 7). Although it is problematic for many to
acknowledge, many women do find themselves in roles related to documentation,
organisation and advocacy (see section 4.1), which deprives them of the gravitas
associated with ‘technical expertise’. It is very difficult in this community to move
into significant and accepted leadership roles without having demonstrated technical
prowess first.4 The inequality can be seen in just how often it requires heavy lobbying
by a documenter to have a developer change code. One of our informants, a
documenter with the GNOME project, reported that she goad a developer with the
possibility she would describe a programming bug in the documentation before the
latter was motivated to change the code.
In this way, code acts as a symbolic proxy for ‘technical expertise’, which in turn
defines what is worthwhile knowledge (see section 5). Other forms of knowledge
such as the ability to write comprehensive documentation or to provide good
translations are comparatively underrated.
While this construction of 'the technical' is also largely the case in proprietary
4 There are a couple of exceptions, for instance in the Mozilla foundation or in the KDE projects where
people with no coding contributions attain leadership positions. Interestingly in both cases these have been
women.
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

32
software, in the commercial world there is a heavy obligation to produce a final
uct, and therefore documentation and usability work cannot be dispensed with
ly. However, in conditions of ‘scarcity’ it is the first thing to go. “Making
g work” is prioritised over “making the thing work for a user”. Kendall (2004),
xample, found that as ‘dot com’ occupations grew into specialisations, men used
nological imagery to define their work, leaving them with a much greater say in
prod
easi the
thin
for e
tech
e final product. In the dot com crash, the supposedly ‘softer’ skills of web design
as excluded from the shrinking job market, and the proportion of women in IT
ncept
vents
ue
tion.
nd
s
e are aware of a contradiction here. Women are seen as unnecessarily constructed
rtain
is
onstru
th
w
declined as a result (see section 5). In F/LOSS, projects often stay at ‘proof of co
stage’ (see Comino et al 2005) in part because frequent scarcity of resources pre
projects from paying for the polishing work5, but more importantly because the val
system in the community encourages participants to consider this kind of activity as
less worthwhile. In a community which up until very recently consisted
predominantly of people with programming skills this value system motivates
'technical' coding activity and discourages other tasks within the software produc
One reason that these other skills are less valued is because many people understa
them as innate aptitudes rather than as skills acquired through some effort. This
reading is a direct result of the way in which women are connected to understandings
of the social. Women are seen as ‘naturally’ able to communicate, and any
demonstrated ability to communicate with non-hackers is used to confirm thi
supposed naturalness. Woodfield (2000) describes a similar dynamic in the
proprietary world.
W
as different when it comes to the meritocratic sphere of coding itself – there is no
reason why they should not succeed as men do, yet in other F/LOSS spheres, their
natural difference from men is assumed and acted upon in the interests of a ce
group (coders, men).
There is a circularity to this sort of exclusion. Because so much of the software
c cted for use by developers, the full range of software design possibilities is not
5 Although in the case of the Ubuntu project this work is indeed partly funded (see section 7)
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

33
in practice explored, and therefore only a narrow skill set is imagined to be sufficient.
In Comino, Maneti and Parisi’s (2005) study, only 27% of projects found on
SourceForge—the largest resource of open source software—were aimed at end us
A similarly small proportion of programmes make it past proof of concept stage.
Historically, F/LOSS community membership has come through use: users test
software (which in the world of F/LOSS normally requires a highly detailed technical
knowledge) and file bug reports, eventually learning to submit their own bug fixes.
These users are limited to those that already have a good deal of computing
knowledge. Linux platforms used to be so difficult to install that the community
organised install parties, where would-be users bring their machines to one location
for assistance with installation and configuration. Install parties are one way of
bringing users into F/LOSS and are necessary due to the difficulties of changing the
software to meet their needs as-is. Similarly, the Debian Women project
aims towards supporting integration of female Debian users into the main Debi
project through skills development, not producing ‘women-friendly’ software
ers.
explicitly
an
parately.
n more
else,
nvites the
gs must be ‘dumbed down’ for neophytes to take interest. The
medy is located in changing the skills of the user. This takes on subtly gendered
terns, who does not grasp the difference between network
eed and processor speed. “Getting to Aunt Tillie” represents the mainstreaming of
has
,
se
In the absence of widespread support efforts, the way in which prioritised coding
makes its way into software design works to keep the group endogenous. Without
newcomers homogeneity is largely replicated. While recently there have bee
efforts to change this design bias, in a community that values coding above all
designing usable software suggests something about (gendered) identity. It i
connotation that thin
re
overtones, and reproduces the notion that hacker masculinity is too clever to engage
with the mainstream. For example, Ratto (2003) demonstrates how levels of skill
amongst users are imagined on gendered terms. “Aunt Tillie” is common jargon for
the archetypal non-technical user, one’s elderly and scatterbrained maiden aunt who
downloads knitting pat
sp
F/LOSS. But as some members have pointed out, this is a tautology: if Aunt Tillie
installed Linux herself, she is not Aunt Tillie. Ratto goes on to report various other
fictional personas used to imagine gradations of masculinity/femininity and expertise
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

34
which fit on a sliding scale.
There is yet another element in the relationship between design and homogeneity.
Historically, women tend to include in their narratives about their interest in
computing some sort of instrumental gain that software makes possible. While th
report interest in problem solving and scientific curiosity in the same way as men do,
they tend to also include this facet. While this instrumental aspect has often been
reported as ‘computational reticence’ (Turkle 1998, see section 5)—i.e., deni
to just a tool rather than a celebrated locus of pleasure—this element only implies
reticence for some. For others it is just as much a source of interest and excitement.
F/LOSS, however, used to develop software for a closed circuit of software
developers. Ironically, F/LOSS communities claim to build a set of technologies for
the public good (as opposed to proprietary gain), yet have much more difficulty
coping with the needs of a greater public, compared to proprietary software.
In these ways
ey
grating it
‘openness’ in F/LOSS is a misnomer, as the community is highly
omogeneous in its production practices. Often it is almost as if software projects are
h
not about software production but about code production, where members imagine
that within code lies exclusive access to worthy knowledge. In this sense, F/LOSS
resembles academic computer science more than engineering. It is perhaps not a
coincidence that proportions of women in F/LOSS resemble academic computer
science numbers. However, there are plenty of examples which demonstrate that
coding is not the only way of being technical (see recommendations).
4.4 F/LOSS production and infrastructure is designed and built assuming
contributors have a long history with computers, but women tend to engage later
in their lives with computers. In order to join women have a larger amount of
catching up work to do, which they must do in an environment that almost
exclusively values independent discovery.
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

35
Lin (2005) argues that a major contributing factor in the exclusion of women
F/LOSS is that most coding is done from the command line rather than through a
graphical user interface (GUI). So women tend to enter computing as a result of
formal education (see also Margolis and Fisher 2002), which teaches using GUIs.
However, we suspect the greater problem lies with the length of computer experience.
Our survey revealed that women who are in F/LOSS have shorter computing
histories. Whereas men started using a computer at an average age of 12, women star
using computers at 14.5 years. Similarly our male participants owned their fi
computer at the age of 15 on average, whereas women had their first computer at the
age of 19.
in
t
rst
Figure 5: Survey respondents to the questions: “From which age onwards did you use a
computer?” and “When did you have your first computer of your own?”
Early com lis and
Fisher 2002). The issue is not one of strai
sorts of backgrounds are m
into add
beginning, and assum participants are normally assumed to
puting experience does not predict computer science success (Margo
ght expertise, but the way in which some
ade into prerequisites (see section 4.6), which translates
itional burdens. In contrast to computer science courses which start from the
e no knowledge, F/LOSS
Start using a computer
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
Men
Women
0Age first own computer
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

36
already have the knowledge at hand before entering a project. It means women are
ore likely to have to ask questions more frequently than their male counterparts,
hich is a problematic thing to do in a social world that rewards technical expertise
n
lying impatience with the ignorant, or by showing off the extensiveness of
eir knowledge, instead of providing an uncomplicated answer. For people entering
e community this dynamic is not easy to recognise and they often ascribe the
im
a very
In respect of
anuals, women often refer to an interaction with human beings (family members,
articipation in the F/LOSS community women more often visit technical conferences
m
w
and autonomy, flaming (see section 4.6), and uses reputation as its generalised
currency.
There is some reputational advantage to be gained by showing oneself to be more
expert than others, but how this is performed qualitatively is equally significant. A
rude way to express impatience with an ‘easy’ question is to say that the perso
should RTFM (read the f***ing manual). Interestingly, rude responses are often given
by people who are in the process of gaining a reputation. It is often as if lower
ranking participants try to build their reputation by either responding rudely and
thereby imp
th
th
patient responses they receive as a function of their own lack of knowledge.
Most of our informants taught themselves by reading manuals and books from
young age, which they interpret as a kind of independent auto-generation of
knowledge, rather than a communication between author and reader.
the assumed auto-generation of knowledge, we found gendered
differences among our participants. Whereas most men remember their first learning
steps into computing as a form of solipsist interaction with the machine assisted with
m
friends, teachers, courses, etc.) as a way into computing. Also during their
p
and workshops.
What is at stake is far more than asserting hierarchies between newcomers and
experts, but creating norms about the precise way in which one should acquire
knowledge. Asking ‘easy’ questions violates these unwritten models and is interpreted
as a lack of independence. The issue surrounding the GUI vs. command line, then, is
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

37
not a mere matter of ‘women-friendly design’—a notion which must be used with th
greatest of caution. In fact, it makes evident an insiders’ model of understanding
experience and learning, which in turn makes the ‘experience gap’ significant.
e
y
butors
The
e
uting
experiences.
lthough it is considered ideal that good code would speak for itself, in reality
rate
ormants described this dynamic in the following way:
s is
. And
4.5 Inflammatory talk and aggressive posturing (‘flaming’) is accepted within man
F/LOSS projects as a key means of developing reputation. Whereas more
established F/LOSS members engage less in ‘flame wars’, people still
establishing their reputation often use them as a platform to make themselves
visible. This is often off-putting for newcomers and less experienced contri
who are not yet familiar with the community, its norms, or its real hierarchy.
effect is particularly pronounced in the case of women, who in most cases have a
shorter history in computing and therefore less confidence in defending
themselves on technical grounds. ‘Flaming’ thus exacerbates the confidenc
difficulties women tend to have as a result of lower levels of previous comp
A
authors must vociferously defend their work or proposals in order to demonst
knowledge and develop a reputation as a valuable person. Demonstrating and
defending one’s technical proficiency is vital. Sometimes a tiny technical decision
results in a discussion consisting of several hundred emails. The discussions tend to
become more fierce as they progess.
M., one of our inf
[P]eople in the free software community think that technical correctnes
the most important thing. We should do whatever is correct technically
once you get into the idea that technical competence is what matters it
becomes a lot more acceptable to have arguments, quite vicious arguments
over technical questions because the most important thing is the technical
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

38
solution is the best. So if you have a big argument it does not matter. But not
everybody wants to have big arguments over technical details. (...) Peopl
emotionally attached too and if they feel that their position – and to some
extent their credibility – if you attach that to a technical decision and ot
e get
her
people disagree with, then losing the argument makes it look like you are
wrong to have that position in the first place. This implies that you are less
competent to make choices in the future. (...) The stronger the argument gets,
the worse you feel if you loose. And so you are willing to put more into the
argument. So it just gets worse and worse and worse. But instead of making
by
sort
ss and you
.
ant
In s
actu ute a
grea le.
On
people within the project, but especially to people who are in other projects or even
outside the F/LOSS community.
. agrees with our observation:
tribute
better. In theory people always talk about free
. I think that is not how it works. I think I could
argue that it is not a meritocracy. It isn't. It is noisy people that get
ss the
a nice and simple technical decision you are involved in a 200 message flame
war. (...) And if you have such a way that technical decisions are made
that sort of argument then it means that if you are not getting into that
of argument you are contributing less to the decision making proce
won't get as high in the recognition within the project. You are less visible
There is a pattern that people who get on quietly with stuff are less import
within the project. Theses are people who are not remembered. They are not
people you think of.
ome cases participation in such discussions seems to be even more important than
al production of code. We have found cases where people who do contrib
t deal but do not get involved in flame wars are perceived as less knowledgeab
the other hand people who often engage in flame wars become visible both to
M
“There are some people in the community that get involved in these
arguments that aren't any developers. Some of them actually don't con
anything to the project. To be honest it is difficult to describe them as
members of the community. Sitting on IRC and mailing lists having these
arguments does not make the community better. Actually doing something
useful makes the community
software being a meritocracy
recognised.”
There are mailing lists as well as IRC channels which are known as inflammatory and
hostile. More experienced participants often avoid these environments and discu
relevant issues at other forums. These lists and channels are, however, often not listed
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

39
on the projects' websites and are therefore not known to less experienced people
arriving newly at a project. Newcomers are often quickly deterred by the atmosphere
o matory talk and turn the back to the projects all together. Krieger during his
fieldwork often used contacts to knowledgeable people he encountered outside the
community to ask the 'silly' questions. This is a form of behaviour we found often
with our less experienced informants. One of them described it in the following way:
“I ask the nice people I know the stupid and easy questions off list and only post the
difficult and good questions on mailing lists and IRC.” This is, however, only
possible if one already knows people who can answer these questions. Asking easy
questions are often rudely answered by ‘Go and google it.’ Or the questioner is
referred to rather intimidating documents such as the ‘Howto ask a Question’. This
r is off-putting to all
f inflam
ehaviou newcomers, but even more to women who often already
e
friendly speech (Scott, Semmens and
illoughby 2001, Michaelson and Phol 2001, Herring 1996, and Winter and Huff
cularly rewarded and has a particular rationale. In
ddition, flaming contributes to the notion that there is a dualistic right or wrong,
ed by
ly
rkle 1998) that when women learn to program they
re more inclined to gather as much information about a programming problem first
wide and rapidly developing domain (Downey 1998 and Ullman 1997). The field
b
feel outsiders. It is not random that many of the women advocacy groups take up this
point. They all have a 'be friendly' policy to newbies and 'silly' questions. Groups lik
grep!grrls make it clear that there is not something like a 'too silly' question.
While there is scholarship that argues that online communication lends itself to
flaming and other forms of women-un
W
1996), in F/LOSS flaming is parti
a
because flames are carried out until one person backs down. It is also reinforc
the idea that as a non-mainstream grouping which dissociates with ‘being social’,
concern for the feelings of others can be disregarded.
However, women consistently tend to underrate their skills, both in F/LOSS and
elsewhere (Wilson 2003, Margolis and Fisher 2002, Tierney 1995). It is wide
ecognised (first identified in Tur
a
rather than jumping straight in with an attempt at a solution. However, key aspects of
software programming prevent them from ever developing the confidence that such
background knowledge would afford. No one can claim absolute expertise in such a
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

40
changes so fast it is not as if expertise can simply be developed through seniority
experience; rather, it is a constant game of chase to, on the one hand, be seen to do
‘edgy’ stuff (the most technically advanced and therefore the most prestigious), and
on the other hand to conceal what is unknown. In a context that rewards visible
criticism, such a chase proves particularly problematic for either the less confident,
for those who find ‘winging it’ disingenuous. As one woman put it, “nobody ever
says you can’t do something but you are always scared because there is always some
missing knowledge.” That women often greet this missing knowledge with fea
than excitement and pleasure reflects not just low confidence levels after moving int
F/LOSS, but the very real prospect that leaps into the unknown will be met by
inflammatory criticism. Similar to what Margolis and Fisher (2002) found in their
study of computer science students, this leads many F/LOSS women to question
whether their interests and talents really do lie in F/LOSS.
and
or
r rather
o
code
labour is
er
ry
community.
4.6 The reliance on long hours of intensive computing in writing successful
means that men, who in general assume that time outside of waged
‘theirs’, are freer to participate than women, who normally still assume a
disproportionate amount of domestic responsibilities. Female F/LOSS
participants, however, seem to be able to allocate a disproportionate larg
share of their leisure time for their F/LOSS activities. This gives an
indication that women who are not able to spend as much time on volunta
activities have difficulties to integrate into the
Both F/LOSS men and women are highly active in taking part in the monetary
economy either by self-employment or salaried work. Less than 1/5 (18.6%) of all
F/LOSS participants do not work either due to unemployment or because they are
students, or because they are stay-at-home spouses. There is no significant difference
measurable between men and women in this figure. Similarly there is no significant
difference measurable in terms of the monthly income.
However men and women do engage in different aspects of the monetary economy.
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

41
Whereas the share of men in the areas directly related to computing (programmers,
software developers, network administrators, database administrators, web designer
is almost 2/3 (65 %) there are less then half of the female F/LOSS participants (48 %
working in this field. Women tend to engage professionally in other fields. These
figures are not surprising considering the kind of activities women and men engage
with within their F/LOSS participation (see 4.2). Taking into account that technica
computing jobs tend to be towards the upper end of income scales these figures
confirm our impression that F/LOSS women who do not work on technical computer
jobs are in more senior positions. This can on the one hand be explained with the fact
that F/LOSS women are older then F/LOSS men (median age of F/LOSS wome
31 compared to 29 of F/LOSS men), but also be attributed to the fact that more
women in F/LOSS are formally educated. Whereas about 25.5 % of the male F/LO
participants do not hold a university degree there are only 13
s)
)
l
n is
SS
.8 % of F/LOSS women
o not have a degree. At the top of the education scale there are about 1/3 more
omen holding a PhD than men in F/LOSS(see Figure 9).
d
w
Figure 9: Survey respondents to the question: What is the highest level of education you have
completed?
No degree Bachelor Master PhD
0 5
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Men
Women
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

42
There is a large sociological literature proposing that women continue to do more
housework than men (see e.g. Shelton & John, 1996 or more recently Bianchi et al,
2000 for reviews). However when we asked our participants how often household
responsibilities kept them from their F/LOSS activities we did not find a significant
difference between men and women.
As we expected, men and women do have different amounts of spare time available.
Our survey showed that male F/LOSS participants on average have 20 hours of spare
time (median) available per week whereas our female respondents only can spend
17.5 hours (median) on their leisure activities. Nevertheless this did not keep F/L
women from taking part in F/LOSS activities. Both men and women stated that they
spend an average of five hours (median) of their spare time for F/LOSS activities.
Also other time indicators such as the time spent within the last week for their m
F/LOSS project do not show any difference.
OSS
ain
hen it comes to the professional engagement in F/LOSS activities we found that
omen and men do spend the same amount of time. Considering that professional
ities
n get into
high-level p
unity. This very particular situation also tells us something about the women
ho are not in the community.
en have a similar income compared to men is particularly
teresting. The literature on women in IT professions says that we should expect a
W
w
F/LOSS tasks, up until very recently, were almost exclusively technical activ
(which are less carried out by women – see above) it would seem that wome
F/LOSS jobs through the increased involvement of large software corporations
running their own F/LOSS projects for profit (see section 7).
Taking these results together we find that women who are involved in F/LOSS are
rofessionals, often working in senior positions and are more highly
educated than F/LOSS men.
What we have described is the socio-economic situation of many women who are in
the comm
w
The fact that wom
in
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

43
shrinking pipeline (Camp 1997) where women drop out as their career progresses,
or
rofessional roles to engage with the
ommunity.
rth
Long sustained periods of
rogramming is both an element of everyday practice and culturally perpetuated as an
h
for
ly, in Margolis and
isher’s study of computer science students at Carnegie Mellon University, 69% of
is
men likely to engage in a community which perceives
omputing as a value which drives out all others.
aving a life’ outside computing. This is related to the
ay in which having social ties and technological interests are seen as mutually
ultural
leaving an overrepresentation of inexperienced women and a high amount of
personnel turnover. Historically in IT, as elsewhere, women are paid less than men f
similar roles (Faulkner 2002) and are overrepresented in low-prestige roles (Ranson
and Reeves 1996). In turn this suggests that it is more difficult for women who are
less experienced or are in less senior p
c
F/LOSS women do have less spare time available. Nevertheless they allocate a
proportionately higher amount of it engaging in F/LOSS activities. Many of our
informants, however, reported that participation is particularly difficult for women
with family duties and many of them drop out. Women who do code tend not to have
children, and some men with children have decreased their involvement with the bi
of children, as have women. However, the construction of ‘free’ time again gets back
to issues of identity and individual autonomy.
p
ideal in widely read documents such as Portrait of J Random Hacker. Many F/LOSS
participants who are involved in the technical aspects of the movement draw on
hacker identities, distinguishing themselves from others and the mainstream throug
sheer obsessiveness. The hacker model of writing code involves spending marathon-
length hours working ‘close to the machine’ (Ullman 1997), which is a problem
people with interests or obligations outside computers. Similar
F
women believed themselves to be different from the majority of their peers in that
their life did not revolve around computers, compared with just 32% for men. Th
suggests that there are less wo
c
The long hours serve as a demonstration of independence and enthusiasm; it is a
symbol of severed ties and not ‘h
w
exclusive (see also Faulkner 2000), which in turn draws on longer standing c
tropes of the unencumbered explorer as the model for pursuing knowledge. For
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

44
example, scientific careers still largely assume periods of long, unbroken intensive
study (Wajcman 1991). If one is not as single minded, then it is all to easy to b
questioning one’s aptitude and interest level. Some of our female informants
described the necessity for this focus and also refer to the need to ‘catch up’. L. who
is a female contributor to the Debian project described that in the following way:
“In ord
egin
er to catch up in all the knowledge I have missed in terms of general
free software experience, in terms of computer experience and in computer
science degree kind of stuff it had to be a way of life. (...) [I]t is very off-
f
S
t
as
g
putting if you can't make it your way of life. I was lucky because I got
involved in a stage I could by going to the university, but it would be very
hard to get involved at the age of say 30 or age 40 when you have plenty o
other commitments. So I think that this is something worth thinking about.
Because many people, many guys at least when they get involved in free
software and computers it really is a way of life for them. And this is still the
dominant way of getting involved in this stuff. But it makes it very hard for
people for whom it is not a way of life to get involved.”
There are many couples who share an interest in F/LOSS, and some report that the
ability to empathise with the level of obsessiveness required has helped enable
continued involvement. L. described the relationship she had with another F/LOS
hacker:
“It [coding] took up all my time, all my thought, all my energy. And if there
was somebody else who was also interested in the same things it was fine, i
was a shared interest. It was something we could do together. If I would have
been going out with somebody who had just nothing to do with that than I
would not have had time for that. Everything I was reading, everything I w
thinking had to do with computers. (...) One year Valentine's day was spent
taking apart a computer, sitting on the floor eating pizza, installing somethin
on it, I think it was Net BSD. Everything was to do with computers.
Absolutely everything.”
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45
5. Discussion in Relation to Relevant Literature
Throughout this report we have made claims about the way in which gender is
constructed, but we have yet to unpack what this term actually means. The current
gender and technology literature expresses a clear preference for social constructiv
ist
pproaches. These approaches suggest that the question of why women are ‘absent’
om te
te
.
his is not just a matter of revising historical accounts; there have been ample studies,
oth historical and contemporary, which have shown how technologies stop being
tatus
t-
, men who already saw themselves through a technological paradigm called
emselves ‘systems administrators’ or ‘web developers’ and were able to edge out
male
e,
m
chnology merely points to a tautology.
his confluence of technology and masculinity is about practices of identity, or what
Cynthia Cockburn (1991) calls “technology as masculine culture”. However, concepts
of identity are somewhat contested. The notion of gender stereotypes often used in
positivist social science implies that there exists some context-less imagery,
a
fr chnology is in fact the wrong question. Instead they seek to demonstrate that
the very concept of technology has been defined as ‘that which men do.’ It is qui
easy to see this historically. In medieval Europe, women applied mouldy bread to
wounds to help them heal, which proved a rather effective vehicle for what would
later be known as penicillin. Both amongst contemporaries and in histories of
technology, this practice was dismissed as mere craft, while men’s fumblings with
leeches and medicinal prayer were reported as precursors to modern medical science
T
b
seen as technologies once women have access to them. Kotamraju (2004), for
example, shows how the skill of web design was demoted to a ‘non-technical’ s
as it became a way in which women described and approached their work. In the do
com bust
th
fe workers for scarce jobs.
The term ‘technical’ has an illocutionary ability to define not just what is masculin
but also what is a central or important activity. Social construction points to the way
in which gender is reproduced actively in new settings as they evolve, and is not
simply a legacy of the past. In this sense, to ask why women are excluded fro
te
T
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

46
unbounded by the relationships and configurations of power that instantiate it, which
people slot themselves into like so many choices on a bookshelf. What is meaningful
is
n
e
of
about co-construction of gender and technology,
eaning that artefacts are used to articulate and display gender, and simultaneously
,
t ‘plurality of genders’ as way of
getting past dualities, but in doing this research we found that plurality and
e
he
perception that exclusion had nothing to do with one’s own actions. Ironically, the
about ‘stereotypes’, however, are precisely the relationships that bound their
performance and the power dynamics at work in this wider context. A ‘stereotype’
never unchallenged received wisdom, but is a set of performed identities (Butler
1990) that must be re-produced. There has been a shift away from thinking of men
and women as respectively homogenous categories, and a greater interest in
masculinities and feminities in the plural. Hacker masculinity, for example, is
performed in relation to other styles of masculinity as well as femininity (see sectio
4.2). Much about hacker masculinity is multivalent: they see themselves as
competitive but collaborative, they control and manipulate the machine, but ar
artistic and interactive, playful but practical, they strive for individuality but also
recognition as a community. Computers as well as masculinity are constructed as
sufficiently flexible to allow these contradictions (Hapnes and Sorensen 1995).
There has been a recent push amongst scholars to move past thinking in terms
dualities. While ideas about masculinity do rely on femininity, and at the same time
there is enough multi-valence to make it difficult to talk in mutually exclusive terms.
For writers such as Donna Haraway (1991), both gender and technology are about
ambiguity, and problematically so. She celebrates tropes of contamination and
pollution. Authors commonly talk
m
these ways of doing gender are built into the design (Gill and Grint 1995, Adam 1999
Green and Adam 2001) and even spatial arrangement of the artefacts (Wakeford
1999).
It has recently become fashionable to talk abou
multivalence was, in a sense, part of the problem. Hacker alterity very much sets itself
against other types of masculinities that position women as mainstream and therefore
Other. Also, the equivocation that some men expressed about being a hacker, and th
contextual ways in which hacker tropes are invoked, directly contributed to t
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

47
post-modern tactic of seeing the social world as a construction was in part a way to
unsettle its naturalness, and thus invite its undoing. Yet its very ‘unnaturalness’ is, for
F/LOSS members, grounds for dismissing gender as mere social conditioning
section 4.1). Instead, they locate the problem with unduly ‘inflexible’ women. The
very real flexibility in identities contributed to the ongoing invisibility of gender
issues.
(see
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48
6. Discussion of Recommendations
6.1 General Discussion of Recommendations
F/LOSS still is a predominantly European approach to produce software. Again our
survey showed there were more than twice as many participants from European
ember states compared to the US. This is in line with previous research undertaken
in this field (e.g. Ghosh, Glott and Krieger 2002, Robles et al 2001). F/LOSS is a
major motor for technological innovation and development and is becomeing more
and more relevant in the competitive field of commercial software industries (see
section 7). F/LOSS already contributes considerably to economic growth in the field
of information and communication technologies. This is important for larger
corporations, but even more for small and medium sized enterprises which do not
hold their intellectual stakes in software patents, but in the creative potential F/LOSS
provides to them. With an increasing share in professional software production
F/LOSS will be one of the fastest growing fields of employment in software industries
in the upcoming decade. Furthermore F/LOSS is actually one of the few fields where
information sharing and trans-national cooperation beyond the frontiers of EU
member states is already in place and working. F/LOSS contributors are often highly
mobile, flexible in their choice of working and living environment and continuously
striving to increase their computer literacy. They can be considered as the workforce
for the knowledge based economy.
Whereas the European Commission's ICT strategy over the last one and a half
decades pointed towards regional cohesion and inclusion of users we argue here for a
an inclusion strategy that not only focuses on users but also on producers of ICTs.
When F/LOSS as a sustainable form of technology production becomes an important
factor in Europe's economic environment it is important to integrate as many groups
within European societies as possible, in particular women who are so strongly under-
represented. We believe that at this moment it is crucial for the further development
of F/LOSS and its stakeholders to begin to make use of a broader base of contributors,
i.e. that the community starts to integrate a larger variety of the society in its
m
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

49
production process. Our survey, however, also showed that the European Union has a
gnificantly lower ratio of female participants than all other regions worldwide (i.e.
SA, Asia, Latin America, Africa). This should be particularly alarming for the
keeping its competitive advantage in
this field.
n
ss
al
ifically,
ctive
itions within technological professions.
ns.
’
4.6
si
U
European Commission which has an interest in
Because so many people begin their careers in software through early tinkering o
computers, F/LOSS would benefit from improvements in gender inclusion in both
ICT use and production generally. The public policy instruments available to addre
these wider questions have been identified by the EC-sponsored Strategies of
Inclusion: Gender and Information Society programme, as well as other internation
efforts such as the Commission on Technology, Gender, and Teacher Education,
convened by the American Association of University Women (AAUW). Spec
we would encourage focussing on educational interventions, as formal education
seems to be much more significant for women’s decisions to become programmers
than for men (Margolis and Fisher 2000).
Here we limit our recommendations to those that are specific to F/LOSS; however, it
is important to emphasise policies specific to F/LOSS are most likely to be effe
in a context where women and girls are likely to engage with ICTs more generally.
As we showed in section 4.1, the ‘digital divide’ issue with respect to F/LOSS is not
only an issue of getting women interested in computers at a young age (although that
does play a role), but the wider cond
F/LOSS communities show aspects of organisation that require creative solutio
Institutionally, F/LOSS takes place sometimes within higher education contexts,
sometimes within commercial contexts, and sometimes through groups of ‘amateur
enthusiasts who self-organise through electronic communication and occasional face
to face meetings. Self-organisation is very much at the heart of the F/LOSS
community building, and much of the work is voluntary. Therefore the usual
repertoire of recruitment and retention techniques deployed in large public or private
sector organisations (such as quotas and flexible working), needs to be supplemented
and adapted. This will require both creativity as well as resources. As section
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

50
shows, women are particularly disadvantaged by the reliance on unpaid labour.
Again, here different policy spheres interrelate. Women are also disadvantaged in
getting access to venture capital such as private equity financing (Amatucci and S
2004). Although it is outside the scope of our remit, policies to address this inequity
we believe
ohl
would help make it possible for more women to become involved with
/LOSS.
an
iety.
• The equal opportunity argument points to women’s rights to the benefits
sm
ance to
quality
F
Our recommendations are proposed on the principle that policy should explicitly aim
to work with the community’s values and social dynamics rather than impose its own.
Public policy risks becoming irrelevant tick boxes and arbitrary bums on seats
numbers if this fails to be the case. The SIGIS report (2004) stated four reasons why
women should be encouraged into ICT professions:
• The justice argument points to the fact that women may be deprived of
opportunity to contribute to and influence a growing and important
technology in all parts of the soc
offered by the ICT industry labour market.
• The resource argument refers to societal losses when the scientific and
technological talents and experiences of women are not utilised.
• The labour market argument highlights women’s potential role in
contributing to the supply of computer science educated labour to the
industry (p 60.)
These reasons, however valid in researchers’ or policymakers’ eyes, are constantly
challenged and critiqued by both men and women in ICT professions. This critici
needs to be understood and taken into account. The European Commission could very
well have social justice and equality of opportunity as part of its goals, but to
highlight these goals as part of policy action may in fact invite its own irrelev
F/LOSS, which as we have demonstrated, believes itself already working for e
and social justice through meritocratic organisation. Anything that connotes special
help based on gender is likely to undermine rather than assist. The EC and other
public policy bodies would do well to recognise that the mere mention of gender
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

51
raises in many peoples’ minds a set of problems that, as individuals, they feel the
not a part of, and for which imagined remedies constitute a threat to meritocracy.
This is not to say that we are calling for an introduction of ‘gender-blind’ initiatives.
Gender blindness is a fallacy which many scholars argue codes one set of gendered
practices as
y are
normal, rendering other practices deviant or irrelevant (Wajcman 1991,
ill and Grint 1995, Faulkner et al 2004). Instead we argue that the more effective
better
n than social justice concerns.
herefore, we would recommend that these concerns be highlighted as the rationale
for init v
been deem
scholar (Li s women’s economic contribution
over so l
These nee
F/LOSS sti t in their
spare ti which
are success
institutions or others can not be employed in this context. This particularly concerns
issues of discrimination, inflammatory talk, valuation of particular work tasks and so
f
G
course is to design public actions with gender in mind, but based on the needs of the
community and in a language that the community will read as legitimate. The goals of
rectifying the loss of a talented labour pool and with it the opportunity to build
technologies is something that is already recognised as a problem within F/LOSS
communities, and is far more likely to motivate actio
T
iati es. We realise, too, that this approach, similarly endorsed by SIGIS, has
ed ‘perplexing [and] requiring alternative interpretations’ by another
n 2005) because it effectively prioritise
cia justice. However, our goal is to propose plausible pathways for change.
d agreement from the community.
ll is very much based upon voluntary work which people carry ou
me rather than as part of their paid labour. Therefore a lot of measures
fully applied in the work environments of companies, public sector
forth. Activities tackling these issues have to come from inside the community itself
and we would rather not propose recommendations in this directions. It is up to the
community as a whole to decide upon how it should organise itself and communicate
this. It is up to single projects themselves to integrate measures such as rules o
conduct or other forms of tackling the social dynamics set out above. On the other
hand it is up to the European Commission to support activities and initiatives which
aim to foster the role of women in F/LOSS and which help to increase female
participation.
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52
6.2 Specific Proposed Actions
h
en devote time to their F/LOSS
activities. This means both funding helping women to take part at specific
ganisers of such events to provide childcare facilities. Projects could
clude larger European conferences such as the FOSDEM (Brussels) or Linuxtag
We believe that mainly changes within the F/LOSS community itself can lead to bot
more women taking part in F/LOSS as well as to a shift in the way they contribute.
Nevertheless there are possible ways public sector institutions can support such
change. These recommendations have been developed for the European Commission,
however many of them can be carried also by other public sector institutions on
different administrative levels:
European Commission: all recommendations
Local authorities: 6.2.1. - 6.2.5, 6.2.8.
Regional authorities: 6.2.1. - 6.2.6., 6.2.8.
National governments: 6.2.1 - 6.2.8
6.2.1 Provide tangible resources to help wom
F/LOSS events, as well as continuous support to enable women to take part in
F/LOSS projects over a longer period of time..
One major reason that women do not participate in F/LOSS is that it is largely
produced in developers’ spare time (see section 4.6). The survey results suggest that
women in the community spend an extensive amount of their leisure time contributing
to F/LOSS, too. However it is very likely that this is one of the barriers for women
who do not have such an amount of spare time to spend on F/LOSS due to
responsibilities related to household work and childcare. It is therefore crucial to
provide tangible resources in form of facilities that enable women to devote time to
F/LOSS. On the one hand this concerns events taking place offline, in particular
F/LOSS conferences, hackathons, install parties and so forth. Funds would be
necessary for or
in
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53
(Karlsruhe).
to help women in their continuous participation
ithin F/LOSS projects on a more regular basis. It is important that F/LOSS
e
a
already familiar with problems women face in
omputing, and have in place solutions which give opportunities to women. The
bridge, for instance, provides
care to their students and staff. These
oven their effectiveness. Special
t women who aim to participate in F/LOSS
rojects can make use of these resources. The ubiquity of higher and futher
ducational institutions throughout member states provides the opportunity to make a
buil quired
as w o
incl rogrammes to current or
potential F/LOSS participants. Collaboration with local womens' advocacy groups
to
ities
e
In addition, facilities are needed
w
contributors can devote several hours in a row on a weekly basis for their F/LOSS
activities. Women often do not find the opportunities for this continuous time at hom
and therefore require a dedicated place to achieve their tasks. As it would require
large effort to create these facilities specifically for female participants of F/LOSS, it
would be more efficient to link to already existing facilities in public institutions
(such as universities) which are
c
Computer Laboratory at the University of Cam
computing facilities with attached child
institutions are already in place and have pr
agreements could be negotiated so tha
p
e
genuinely local and accessible solution available to a large number of women,
ding on infrastructure that is already in place. Funding would certainly be re
ell as the establishment and co-ordination of the programme. This would have t
ude coordination on the local level to link these p
provides an immediate avenue. In addition to universities we recommend a link
other institutions that foster the reintegration of women into the workforce (e.g. via
adult education). A vital aspect of the above proposal is to put F/LOSS on the
political agenda of educative measures (see also below).
6.2.2. Foster the participation of girls in F/LOSS activities at an early age.
Our research has shown that women in F/LOSS start both their computing activ
as well as their contributions to F/LOSS in a later phase of their life (section 4.1 and
4.6). This causes some of the problems in their F/LOSS participation since they hav
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54
to undertake a lot of ‘catch up’ work before they are able to contribute to much of the
evelopment activities (section 4.4) . It is therefore important to support activities that
s
in
S
ll-girl
.g.
ght not be
ns
of
ake place online via email,
C and other forms of remote communication, offline events are crucial for the
eling of being integrated within the community. On the one hand local events such
es
nd conferences play a far larger role. There seem to be less difficulties for boys
d
encourage girls to get into F/LOSS at a similar age as their male counterparts. Thi
can be achieved though a variety of means.
Contribution to F/LOSS projects normally starts out with the installation and use of
the software itself. Therefore the European Commission should support schools
specifically in teaching computer skills with F/LOSS products rather than proprietary
software (e.g. using OpenOffice rather than Microsoft Office suites, programming
Python rather than in Visual Basic). Formal education in computing seems to be
particularly relevant for girls and therefore it would be helpful to integrate F/LOS
technologies already in school computing syllabi.
Furthermore many of our female participants reported the helpfulness of an a
environment during their first phase of getting into computing and programming (e
schools, workshops, mailing lists). Whereas we do acknowledge that this mi
necessary for all potential female F/LOSS contributors it is important to understand
that this is very effective for some. Therefore we consider short term interventio
such as holiday camps with F/LOSS technologies for young girls interested
computing as a way of minimising knowledge gaps and the resulting confidence
problems, as these have proved to be a stumbling block in the later integration
women in F/LOSS communities. We feel that this would be best carried out in
collaboration with already existing and experienced initiatives in that field (e.g.
grepgrrls).
Despite the fact that a lot of activities related to F/LOSS t
IR
fe
as LUG m etings and install parties are important, but on a project level workshop
a
taking part in these events, and they do so at a younger age than girls. Girls in their
teenage years seem to be almost wholly absent at such conferences. It would be
helpful to provide measures to enable women in this young age to go to relevant
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55
conferences. Grants should include direct funding for transport, but in some cases also
special arrangements for accommodation. Support should not be directed only to girls
giving presentations, but also to girls who want to take part to gather knowledge abo
FLOSS.
ut
are
e
philosophies, they could benefit
om the same sorts of material support. This would include:
SS
not
ot
en
6.2.3 Provide support for the efforts to increase female participation that
already taking place within F/LOSS.
There are a number of groups, such as GNOME Women, Debian Women, Apach
Women, Grepgrrls and LinuxChix that work to support women in F/LOSS. Whilst
they are significantly different in their approach and
fr
• Sponsorship for women to attend the main F/LOSS conferences
• Support for women’s networking events
• Material resources (webspace, printing material, travel costs) to publicise and
promote female engagement in F/LOSS communities (e.g. at the school,
public technology fares, etc.).
The latter activity is particularly significant, as men tend to be made aware of F/LO
much earlier than women through informal networks in which women often do
participate.
6.2.4 The European Commission, and EU Governments should
use their commissioning role to encourage a greater variety of
working methods in the production of software.
F/LOSS communities tend to value writing code at the expense of other forms of
work that go into producing software (see section 4.3). This can include (but is n
limited to) documentation, user interface design, user requirements capture,
community organisation, and software popularisation/marketing. Indeed, both m
and women can be found doing these ‘other’ roles, but women are in practice more
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56
likely to be involved in these functions (see section 4.1), just as they are in proprietary
software. If the EC were to encourage expanding and changing these roles it would be
critical to have equal say in the final product, otherwise there is a danger of merely re-
articulating stereotypes and expanding a continued marginalised presence.
evertheless, if projects were to actively seek more diverse participation, not in terms
onal
broa d be recruited into the movement. This has
the potential to destabilise gender practices by encouraging dialogue and learning
rupt the sharp
istinction often made between technical leadership and social/managerial leadership.
The c depends almost entirely on its
exe ti
making s
well). A t their ‘hacker’ identities, and the individualist
ourish that comes with it, was under threat would be counter-productive. Similarly,
tinuation of the way in which F/LOSS already sees itself as significant
nd creative innovators in ways of producing and distributing software, and already
alues a ‘thousand flowers blooming’, as members are fond of saying. There are, for
example, more ‘off
such as agile comp
without compelling alternative forms
ed and
N
of pers identities but in terms of the processes by which software can be built, a
der range of talents and aptitudes coul
opportunities. User-centred design, for example, both makes a more robust, usable
product and sets new intellectual challenges for coders. In the space shuttle example
documented in the Appendix to this report, documentation leads software design
rather than coding. By encouraging dialogue, both of these dis
d
su cess of encouraging this sort of diversity
cu on. The emphasis should be on destabilising and innovating rather than
F/LOSS ‘less technical’ (the space shuttle example also demonstrates thi
situation where people felt tha
fl
some women expressed to us concerns about being ‘reduced to’ diplomatic roles and
this is in fact a danger. Successful implementation would treat new organisational
forms as a con
a
v
or less the shelf’ techniques for organising software production
uting and extreme programming which address these issues
developers to commit to a rigid blueprint. These
of software production all have in common that they emphasise the fact that
programming is a social activity. Further information about these methods can be
found in the Appendix. All of these experiences and practices could be adapt
selected to meet particular project needs.
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57
The EC has a range of mechanisms at its disposal to do encourage these innovations.
It could, for example:
• Strengthen the development methods criteria in evaluating software
ce,
development methodologies, and promote the results.
e
e
ect rather than by the way this outcome is
chieved. The project's consortium is evaluated on an institutional level and questions
proposals and actively seek methods beyond ‘code and fix’ that worked to
prevent quick but buggy releases from being produced.
• Support proposals which identify innovative methods and provide advice
on the successful implementation of them. For example, in our experien
user-centred design can often be a matter of lip service rather than actual
practice.
• Provide training in usability, participatory design, and documentation
methods.
• Expand funding for projects explicitly aimed at pioneering software
Using the EC’s own commissioning practices would solve the objection that ‘w
don’t have the resources’ that is often used to justify the way documentation and
usability is treated as an afterthought. It would also enable F/LOSS communities to
recognise these skills as acquired rather than innate (and gendered) capacities.
Further information about software development methodologies can be found in th
Appendix.
6.2.5 Modify the criteria for the selection of software products supported by
the European Commission to ensure encouragement is given to those who
positively include women in technical roles or offer other means of support for
encouraging girls and women to enter computing.
EC's funding practice is often very output oriented. Research proposals are evaluated
mainly by the outcome of a proposed proj
a
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58
of diversity of the team working on it are often not taken into account. In terms of
F/LOSS development we argue that the team producing software significantly
etermines its end result. The European Commission could foster diversity in the
roduction of commissioned F/LOSS products by making proposers aware of this
need fo i
projects pr
female dev
6.2.6
where coding is not axiomatically gendered as a ‘male’ activity.
While ther me agreement that sexist practices happen, many people are
convinc heir
own behav al members of the
ommunity recognise their own actions as counter-productive. Indeed, the ‘HOWTO
omfort
one and require them to reflect on how they interact with others. This technique has
such as Malaysia, computer science programmes have half female
udents (Ng 1999), and it is considered a job ‘suitable’ for women (Berg Lagesen
002). Indeed our survey showed for F/LOSS that in non-western countries the share
en i
Res
orde unlikely to reach developers in
any meaningful way. Facilitated face-to-face contact would do much more to
d
p
r d versity. Matching funding could be provided preferably to research
oducing F/LOSS when the consortium´s partners have already or will hire
elopers in key roles.
Sponsor exchange programs or joint projects with parts of the world
e is at least so
ed that these involve ‘other’ men and therefore have nothing to do with t
iour. Significant change will only occur when individu
c
Encourage Women in Linux’ article goes a long way towards helping its readers
recognise potentially unwelcoming behaviour. Another way to break down this
perception is by facilitating direct encounters with people who interrupt taken-for-
granted categories—that is, put people in situations that take them out of their c
z
been used successfully to combat racism in a well-known UK school6. In some parts
of the world
st
2
of wom s twice as high as in Europe and the USA.
earchers sometimes talk about the importance of making these cases visible in
r to unsettle gender dualities (Lie 2003), but this is
alleviate the ‘it’s not me’ problem. Although the particulars of such international
6 See http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/studysupport/casestudies/georgegreens
for more information.
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59
contact would have to be tailored to particular projects, facilitating these contacts
would have the added benefit of encouraging technological transfer into the Eur
Union and directly support its competitiveness. The German government already
experimented successfully with commissioning an exchange programs between the
KMail project and collaborators of the PGP encryption technology in another c
opean
ontext.
6.2.7 Create a greater understanding, through research and dissemination of
projects where technological success was achieved because of diversity.
Wome that more
diversity is likely to lead to better technologies. They are frequently asked “what kind
turn
ing
• help women developers feel less isolated and anomalous
en
ith female contributors to the KDE project, for instance,
n’s activists within F/LOSS have already started making the case
of better technologies?" The EC could help raise awareness about the answer to this
question. There is debate within F/LOSS circles about whether programmes should be
made user friendly, and this debate takes place in gendered terms (see section 4.3).
However, within the community it is nearly impossible to question the value of stable,
error-free software. There are in fact case studies and examples where changes in
development practices went hand in hand with the inclusion of women, which in
mean ‘better’ software (see Appendix for specific case studies).
Examples like these:
• demonstrate in no uncertain terms the value of thinking outside the
hacker box, and the gains for software when women-friendly work
practices are adopted
• demonstrate that ‘social’ concerns are technical concerns and make
better end products
• make women more visible to men in a context where they are often
assumed to be invisible
In this context it would also be helpful to raise the profile of already existing wom
in F/LOSS projects and their different forms of contribution. Initiatives such as
publishing interviews w
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60
helped to make them more known within the community as well as outside the KD
project itself. Encouraging project leaders to communicate about existing women who
are in their project to online media that are read by a larger F/LOSS public (e.g. vi
forwarding contact details for interviews) would both make women more visible in
the F/LOSS universe as well as would underline the efforts of the particular project to
E
a
e welcoming to women.
6.2 are
being actively put off, not just failing to choose to participate, and that this has a
ate
Such support,
wever, would be far more credible and effective if it were to come from well-
rship roles. Discourse about gender focuses far too much on
female di t
‘banter’. The
women, but the leadership could use their pulpit power to help the community
recognise e
improvement f the leadership is unaware that there is a serious
problem, d ey
contribut to is
nothing to do ’ problem sometimes extends to the leadership
s well. This is an immensely challenging issue, as it is likely to raise hackles and
b
.8 Encourage individuals in leadership positions to recognise that people
long term cost to F/LOSS development.
F/LOSS puts a great deal of emphasis on charismatic leadership. These leaders
therefore also must bear some of the responsibility for the culture they have helped
create and shape. Sometimes male members do vocally support women in their
attempts to counter sexist talk and the constant stream of sexual attention, either by
becoming involved in online exchanges or helping to explain to other men appropri
ways to react to women’s presence. With so few women this support is necessary, as
lone voices are easily dismissed as over-sensitive or censorious.
ho
known people in leade
sin erest, often legitimating sexist and inflammatory talk as just part of
re are also discourses about the hostility that too often greets F/LOSS
th cost of this ‘banter’ in terms of labour and potential software
s. Currently, much o
an the discussion about the ways in which the cultural tone th
ed affects women has not yet taken place. We suspect that the ‘gender
with my personal actions
a
accusations of divisiveness. Nevertheless, we feel that any lasting solution must have
the support of those in leadership roles.
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61
Again, the notion that talk should be monitored or regulated is easily de-legitimised as
‘political correctness’. We feel that a plausible course of action is not to attempt to
silence people, but for the leadership to make them aware of the cost they are
incurring on the long-term success of F/LOSS. The articles that already exist on the
subject indeed take this tactic.
is well worth noting too that it is not just women being put off. For instance we
und anecdotal evidence that suggests, participants from countries where adversarial
6.2.9 Foster a greater role for F/LOSS in European innovation policy, and
ble
.
de
the
in
ky 2005).
ties for
bate about what some call the privatisation of
niversities, and therefore help to secure better co-operation and support for
It
fo
talk is frowned upon also leave the movement quite rapidly.
specifically in university technology transfer activities.
Women are particularly disadvantaged by the lack of resources externally availa
for F/LOSS development, as they are least likely to have ‘spare time’ to devote to it
One way to secure women’s involvement is by increasing the public sector resources
devoted to its development. However, technology transfer activities for universities
tend to centre on patenting and licensing exclusive rights. When projects are ma
F/LOSS in universities it is through decisions by individual researchers largely in
absence of institutional support. In the UK, for instance, there is a funding stream
specifically for economic development activities, which has widened the scope of
technology transfer activities. Even in these conditions F/LOSS software development
rarely features. Yet there are plenty of unexploited opportunities for mutual gain
combining F/LOSS models with university ‘third stream’ activities (Willins
Putting F/LOSS on the technology transfer agenda would provide opportuni
highly educated women to participate as part of paid, stable employment. Through
their advanced skills they are also likely to be in an advantaged position to take
leadership roles and serve as visible role models. There are further benefits as well.
Including F/LOSS as part of technology transfer activities would also help diffuse the
fiercely dichotomised and entrenched de
u
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62
university commercial activities amongst faculty members and researchers.
What counts for universities should also be applied to other institutions – priva
public – which use tax revenue such as research and development grants
commissioned by the EC or nati
te or
onal governments. It should be mandatory for
ublicly funded software to show the necessity to restrict public access to the outcome
d
male participation in F/LOSS.
6.3 C
nts
ow
.
p
of their work by not issuing it under a F/LOSS license. This measure actually woul
not require extra funding or organisation though it would have a huge impact on both
Europe's leading role in the field of F/LOSS as well as on the likelihood to increase
fe
oncluding Remarks
Supporting gender equity in F/LOSS is not a regrettable cost that must be met in the
interest of social justice. Rather, there are plenty of additional ‘wins’ to be gained,
not just for F/LOSS but for the EU’s competitiveness as a whole. As an industry,
F/LOSS is in its growth stage. Just as software development efforts are still very
much about ‘just making it work’, so too are the relationships and social arrangeme
at stake in its production. There is what Ratto (2003) calls the ‘pressure of openness’
which makes F/LOSS both an unstable and innovative way to produce software. H
software is produced has just as much social impact as the technologies themselves
Now that F/LOSS is maturing and generating so much interest from unlikely sources,
it is the time to realise the gains that gender equity brings.
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63
7. Recent changes and significant developments
for gender issues in F/LOSS
realm
I got into the project in 1996 nobody believed that
e would have such a success and that so many people would use it. Of course we
anted it to become successful, but I worked on it just for fun.” Despite the early
e Linux distribution Redhat or the webserver Apache there
ere still few large software companies involved in F/LOSS at the turn of the
e
hat is important in our
context is that F/LOSS is evolving from an underground ‘avantgarde’ kind of
movement to a widely accepted and possibly soon-to-become ‘mainstream’ industry.
It is no longer only some computer programmers who understand the production
model and licensing particularities of F/LOSS but also people in corporate business
who take an interest in the movement.
Furthermore development tools themselves are more and more developed in F/LOSS.
On the one hand we thereby think of programming languages such as Python, Ruby or
Mono which are profoundly located in a F/LOSS context. On the other hand libraries
During the term of the project there have been significant developments in the
of F/LOSS production. These developments might amount to the emergence of what
we could call a ‘post-avantgarde’ phase of F/LOSS.
Up until end of the 1990s F/LOSS was a mainly non-commercial endeavour. As one
of our informants told us: “When
w
w
success of projects like th
w
century. The situation is currently undergoing change. On the one hand there are mor
and more companies that employ F/LOSS for their own usage or their follow-up
products (Google, Yahoo, Apple, etc.). On the other hand companies take F/LOSS
products for building and selling complete solutions (IBM, HP, etc.). These
companies have a genuine interest in the further development of these F/LOSS
projects and are willing to contribute to them through their employees time.
Furthermore there are more and more companies which either lead the development
of large F/LOSS projects (SUN, Ximian, etc.) or develop open source software
completely on their own (MySQL, Trolltec). Profit strategies and business plans have
been explored and reach from servicing to dual licensing. W
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64
such as the GTK or QT become significantly more important and are used by smaller
inally hardware producers which used to either produce software for a very
ng term contributor to the Linux
ernel project for instance has confirmed this development: Recently hardware
tarts to
are
exual
ntify
ftware
t engagement of public bodies at this stage we
an observe that development requirements and practises are increasingly fostering
and medium sized companies.
F
particular kind of platform or for large platforms (i.e. Windows or Mac) start to show
more interest in making their hardware work on F/LOSS platforms (e.g. Linux or
BSD) and thereby contribute to these platforms. A lo
k
producers are more interested in their components running on the Linux kernel. They
make driver development a part of some employees job description and thus
collaborate in the Linux project.
Some participants regret this commercialisation of F/LOSS and report a change in the
culture of F/LOSS. As a consequence of this development professionalisation s
play out in different aspects relevant to the question of gender. Whereas volunteers do
not have to take into account rules of courtesy, corporate rules of communication
strictly limiting offensive behaviour. This automatically limits the frequency and
intensity of flame wars (see 4.6) as well as makes it less acceptable to show s
attention towards women (see 4.5). People in a corporate setting tend less to ide
with the hacker ethos (see 4.2). Furthermore – similar to earlier proprietary so
development – the production of a whole product becomes more important than the
sole development of code. This forces coders more to collaborate in tasks like
documentation which will increase the value of these tasks. Also there are more jobs
available which will decrease the necessity for voluntary work which – as we have
seen – may be particularly difficult for women (4.6).
A similar development is recognisable in public sector institutions. F/LOSS is
increasingly employed in public organisations. While migration of existing F/LOSS
projects is certainly the most significan
c
the production of new collaborative software projects using open source methods and
licenses. Additionally to increased demands in terms of documentation and usability
(which is also the case in the private sector) public bodies require a high level of
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

65
accessibility which has already lead to an increasing involvement of corporate
engagement in the GNOME accessibility project (see e.g. the involvement of Sun
icrosystems in the Gnopericus project).
els,
he
ry
E or KDE are on the verge of becoming
ainstream. Whereas F/LOSS developers used to code for other programmers or
Africa,
le´s establishment of their R&D
epartment in Bangalore).
M
While the F/LOSS movement, up until very recently, was occupied with the
production of tools used by other programmers (such as text editors, libraries, kern
drivers, etc.) some projects have reached a maturity level where the targeted users are
people that are no longer more than average computer literate. Projects such as t
web browser Mozilla Firefox have a market share of currently about 20 %. Word
processors such as the OpenOffice Writer are increasingly replacing proprieta
products. Desktops such as GNOM
m
professional system administrators who appreciate a maximum amount of
configurability at the cost of usability, the success of F/LOSS products aiming for a
large, non-computer literate public is measured the other way round. With an
increasing non-programming user base the requirements for F/LOSS software change.
Consistency, usability, interface design, documentation and support become
significantly more relevant.
One can observe a stronger role of so-called developing countries in both the general
computing industries as well as in the F/LOSS movement. The development of
software is carried out more and more in countries such as India, Brazil, South
Russia, China or others. Large corporations move not only the production of lesser
qualified programming and servicing tasks into these countries, but also build up
research and development centres there (see e.g. Goog
d
Interestingly women seem to be far stronger represented in these countries. In our
survey the share of women in developing countries7 compared to men was about 16
% whereas in ´first world´ countries the share of women was only half that high (8
7 We divided the sample in two groups one consisting of EU member states and
candidates, EFTA, USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, the second consisting
of all other countries.
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

66
%).8 Again we suspect that the commercial software industry plays the main role.
nly contribute to raising the numbers of
omen in F/LOSS production it seems likely also that there will always be F/LOSS
that our
Whereas this commercialisation will certai
w
projects that continue to recruit their collaborators from volunteers. It is here
recommendations will perhaps have most purchase, although commercial
organisations who engage and produce F/LOSS code (and indeed code in general)
would also usefully take these findings and suggestions into account.
8 The overall ratio of women is by far higher than in earlier survey (e.g. Ghosh et al.
/LOSS it is
es more women to take part in it.
2002, Robles et al 2001). Even though we do assume an increase of women in F
difficult to measure since the survey was predominantly targeted to gender issues
which certainly motivat
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67
8. Appendices
8.1 Glossary of Terms
Please note that this glossary is a glossary of working definitions intended to enhance
.
Apache: a webserver project produced and organised by the contributors Apache
Software Foundation
Bugs/de-bugging: Flaws in the way the code runs. In any programme there is a large
number of potential pathways through the code, to achieve different ends (blue
text not red text combined with this font not that font etc.). The more people
that use the code, the more chances all these paths are followed, and flaws in
the flow are discovered and fixed.
Debian: a widely used community based, non-commercial Linux distribution created
by an equally large number of participants. Debian is one of the oldest and
largest free software projects.
F/LOSS: Free/Libre and Open Source Software. Overall term which encompasses the
various groupings and allegiances all based upon free or open source software
licenses.
Free Software: term of choice for many F/LOSS participants referring to the freedoms
to use, examine, modify and distribute the software. The term was invented by
he founder of the GNU project, Richard Stallman.
GNOME: One of the largest free desktop environments.
GNU: Stands for ‘GNU's Not UNIX’. It is a project which aims to create a completely
free Unix operating system.
GPL: General Public Licence. Based on each authors’ copyright in their material, a
license which provides free software, but enforces obligations license any
modifications of code under the same condition (copyleft).
GUI: Graphical user interface.
Hacker: a programmer/person intensively interested and engaged in the analysis and
production of software. NOT someone who makes illegal attempts to crack into
computer system.
IRC: Internet Relay Chat is synchronous form of communication. It takes place on
different networks and IRC channels are set up to discuss a particular topic,
software, platform
the readability of this document. As these terms are sometimes contested and
controversial, this glossary does not reflect a set of official definitions
or others.
KDE: One of the largest free desktop environments.
Linux: GPL licensed kernel as an integral part of an operating system (such as e.g. the
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

68
GNU operating system). The project was started and is lead by Linus Torvalds.
Open Source: Marketing term coined by Eric Raymond. The term is often employed
producers of F/LOSS and aims to emphasise the development
r than the aspects of freedom of F/LOSS.
ource code: Human-readable set of instructions which later is compiled to binaries.
ry software, only the computer executable form is made
available to the user.
t
8.2.1 L
This i
demonstrates the im
NASA
memb ny of whom are in senior technical roles.
The code was successful precisely because they changed the relative value placed on
specif
re-eva the group works ordinary
h has particular advantages
princi adapted.
For fu
nline/06/writestuff.html
by commercial
practises rathe
SIn most proprieta
Unix: one of the earliest proprietary operating system. Blueprint for the late GNU
project.
8.2 Case Studies of Diversity Contributing to Successful Technology Developmen
ockheed Martin Space Shuttle Group
s a highly prestigious example from the field of proprietary software that easily
portance of diversity for good software. This group builds
arguably one of the most reliable software in the world, which controls everything
’s space shuttle does from launch until landing. Ten out of twenty-two
ers of the group are women, ma
The reason the software is so error-free is the attention given to process and design.
writing code. In contrast to the dominant ‘hacker’ model, specifications are precise
and teamwork is valued over individual inspiration. The creativity is in writing the
ication and improving the process. In this way the supposedly ‘soft’ skills are
luated as ‘technical’ and are not marginalised. Also,
workdays and does not stay up all hours of the night, whic
for women with family commitments. While there are important differences between
this highly elite group and an average F/LOSS project, equally there are valuable
ples that could be adopted and
rther information, see:
http://www.fastcompany.com/o
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/wms/findPage.do?dsp=fec&ci=13183&sc=400
Carne en. Over the past
ate from 5% to 42%. A central
8.2.2 Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science
gie Mellon has one of the most prestigious departments of computer science
globally and has made a serious and successful effort to recruit wom
five years they have changed their female admission r
element of their success is the recognition that previous programming experience does
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

69
not pr
qualit t
the ex
For fu
Clubhouse: Women in Computing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
he Open Usability Project matches usability experts with free software projects, thus
s role now is widely accepted in the production of this Linux desktop project. It is
ne of the projects in which usability is understood as a technical competence and its
e not perceived as an afterthought.
ucy Suchman (1999) reports on a change in the relationship between technology
:
ivide’ amongst different skills set is
iffused, and people are better able to acknowledge the responsibility that comes with
.
ter able to solve consultancy
problems. For example, in work for a law firm they tried to engage users as
ature of their work; not the ‘assembly line’ model. Attorneys described litigation
pport as monkey work, target for automation and outsourcing, but found these
nds of documents,
had to create a valid and useful database, could do some of junior attorney’s tasks.
edict eventual computer science success, and they stopped using prior
experience with computers as admissions criteria. They have devised a flexible first
year programme that takes account of various levels of experience. The continued
y of the programme demonstrates that being ‘newbie-friendly’ does not come a
pense of setting interesting programming challenges.
rther information, see: Margolis, J and A. Fisher, (2002). Unlocking the
8.3.3 Open Usability Project
T
building more diverse teams of people working on Free Software projects. While its
contributors faced at the beginning a somewhat critical response by KDE developers
it
o
contributions (often by female participants) ar
For further information, see http://www.openusability.org/.
8.2.4 Xerox Parc
L
designers and social scientists and usability specialists at Xerox Parc. Industrial
research traditionally has been modelled as a disciplinary assembly line, where work
is passed off to the next specialist in a queue. There has been a long standing mutual
dissatisfaction in failure of technologies and ideas to ‘transfer’ from one to the other
one side ‘fails’ to take advantage of knowledge about users, the other ‘fails’ to
address the needs of development, each rejecting the assumptions that created the
demands for knowledge. At Xerox Parc this assembly line model has been replaced
with mutual learning, and acknowledging partial translations and person’s limited
sphere of knowing and acting. In acknowledging that technology production is an
extended field of alliances and contests, the ‘d
d
inhabiting a particular position
With this shift in their own work practices they were bet
collaborators in technology production, recognising the mutuality and overlapping
n
su
‘document analysts’ had to carefully examine and encode thousa
The attorneys underused the database due to their ignorance of its capabilities.
Wanted to design something that would relieve the tedium, but help them maintain
interactive control and judgement, thus ‘inscribing’ users’ value into the technology.
Free / Libre / Open Source Policy Support: Integrated Report of Findings (Gender Strand)

70
For further information, see:
Suchman, L. (1999) “Working relations of technology production and use” in D.
MacKenzie and J. Wajcman, The Social Shaping of Technology (2nd edition).
Buckingham: Open Uinversity Press.
8.2.5 Ubuntu
Ubuntu is one of the most recent Linux distributions. It describes itself as “Linux for
itly values diversity both in terms of social identities
nd the various skill sets that make software production and use possible.
or further information, see:
ttp://www.ubuntu.com/community/participate
human beings”. It quite explic
a
It is one of the distributions that particularly allocates resources to tasks which
otherwise are seen as afterthoughts such as documentation, translation, etc. The
success in terms of usability is tremendous. Within less than two years it became one
of the mostly used Linux distributions among private users.
F
h
8.3 Further Resources for Software Development Methodologies
Online Resources:
• Agile Alliance:
http://www.agilealliance.org/programs/roadmaps/Roadmap/index.htm
• Case study of agile principles adapted to live programming situations:
• http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/events/2005-07-04/extreme.pdf
• A description and history of various development methodologies:
http://www.martinfowler.com/articles/newMethodology.html
• A consideration of F/LOSS in relation to traditional development
methodologies:
http://www.ics.uci.edu/%7Ewscacchi/Papers/New/Scacchi-BookChapter.pdf
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71
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