Hug Your Favorite FOSS Contributors Today (On the Internet, no one can see you nod)

Quoting:As with caitlyn, I think that's overstating the case, tracyanne.

Yes JD I am overstating the case. I'm overstating it because I disagree that the the alleged culprit has as much to do with the problem as is asserted, The alleged culprit exists, as caitlyn rightly points out, in all walks of life. The real problem, I believe is that FOSS is elitist, it is allegedly a meritocracy, the best get to the top.

The problem is most people don't want to work that hard, they just want to get things tht work done, they either don't have the time or the inclination to sift through the code to work out how things work. For every Linus Torvolds or Richard Stallman or whichever boy genius you look up to there are 100.. a 1000 tracyannes, we're not brilliant, but given the right tools we can turn pretty solid code that gets the job done.

As Con Kolivas points out, he has a life, it doesn't revolve around code (and he's one of the people I think are brilliant) so what goes for him goes double for the less brilliant of us.

With Proprietary software, you might not have access to the code, but it does come with well documented APIs and toolsets that are easy to get working with, that don't take a PHD to work out how they work. Yes eventually you reach the limits of what they allow you to do with the stuff, but in the meantime you can get some actual work done, you don't have to prove how 733t you are. And at the end of the day you ca ngo home and forget about it.

Yes people do get paid to work in FOSS these days, but the majority don't. I personally would love to contribute to some projects, or even start a small project or two myself. But I can't get the bl**dy tools to work, and the APIs are either badly documented or just obscure. I'd do some stuff with GTK+ and C# except I can't work out how to make GTK widgets work with my code - once again bad or obscure documentation. Windows forms might be cr*p, they are actually, but at least they are well documented and accessible, so it's easy to write GUI applications that work.

Ask yourself how many other people, man and women, have simply given up because of the elitist and yes unwelcoming attitudes of FOSS.

FOSS might be all about the code, but because of that attitude there are like very large numbers of potential contributors that don't, Women, I think are less likely to be impressed by that attitude than men.

@tracyanne Bruce recently published an article on the abysmal quality of some (most?) FOSS projects and I wholeheartedly agreed with him (check out the comments). Again, shouting on the sideline doesn't change too much. Some of you may know I have a particular fancy for Forth and most Forths are very 1337. So I wrote a primer for it that has consequently been distributed with several Forths and inspired a brand new primer by another vendor.

For my project I need a few cross compilers and I came around a very good one which was poorly documented. I wrote an article about it and afterwards (in collaboration with the author) I made it into a small tutorial.

Simply crying "fire!" and expecting somebody else will change won't change a lot in the whole scheme of things. Taking action does, even if it is hard. Crying "fire" and giving only a whole bunch of excuses why you shouldn't do anything is something that irritates me very much. Giving up after trying very hard is better, changing the things you want to change is best.

I'm not seeking praise, I just try to do small things for those causes I find important and I expect the same of all those who are part of the community or claim to be sympathetic. FOSS will only live as long things get DONE, not because some blogs are written. So, before one writes a blog, he/she should ask him/herself the question "What have I done for FOSS today or the problem I want to get solved". Simply stop blaming the horses.

While rereading this entry I think I might give the impression it is addressed to you in particular, tracyanne, but believe me, that is not the case.

FOSS attracts the socially awkward and technically gifted. It offers an outlet, a way of achieving something, of getting peer recognition. But it has a price, it mostly doesn't pay and if it offers personal benefits, they are not direct in terms of career, they have to do with acquiring skills that you can use in your paid career. Its clear that this environment is selecting for people with this combination. If they are not technically gifted, they don't get started. If they are socially well adjusted and well rounded, then they don't want to be there, they can get better returns, both social and financial, from their skills. Not always, but very often.

This is a combination that is far more common in men than women. Its also one that the average woman finds difficult to work with. Social awkwardness, bordering on autism in many cases, is also something that makes it very difficult for these guys to relate to women, whether in a work or social environment. It does lead to fraught situations, this. Its not good. I don't know what the answer is, but suspect it may only be improveable at the margins. It may be that women in FOSS really do need their own groupings, that in this particular area, we are not going to get diversity in the same way we do in commercial software development. There just are not that many obsessive women who want to do this stuff for little financial reward. Certainly, to be talented and in that category, is a gift that comes with a very high price tag.

I don't think that kommander is a gender thing. I can't make head or tail of it either. Probably it will be great when it finally gets wherever its going. And what a relief to read that someone else cannot relate to Eclipse. Don't feel like such a failure any more!