[Techtalk] FLOSSPOLS report on gender in free software

[Hanna M. Wallach]

Hi everyone,

I'm posting this to techtalk because I'd like to reach an intermediate
audience somewhere between feminist and techie. Val Henson suggested
this would be a good way to do so.

Back in 2002, Rishab Ghosh found that only 1.5% of free software
developers were female, as opposed to 28% of proprietary
developers. In 2004, Rishab's colleagues, as part of the FLOSSPOLS
project (http://flosspols.org/), undertook the first comprehensive
study of gender issues in free/open source software, with the aims of
investigating causes of the low percentage of women and developing
policy recommendations. The project, which made use of empirical
surveys, participant observation and ethnographic study, has just been
completed, and the findings and recommendations are online here
http://www.flosspols.org/deliverables/FLOSSPOLS-D16-Gender_Integrated_Report_of_Findings.pdf
and here
http://www.flosspols.org/deliverables/FLOSSPOLS-D17-Gender_Policy_Recommendations.pdf.

I've been involved in the FLOSSPOLS project for just over a year,
working with the investigators of the gender track, and am currently
writing a summary of the findings, aimed at the developer
community. I'd very much like to know what you think of the report,
findings and recommendations. Do the findings accord with your
experiences? Are there recommendations that have been overlooked? In
short, what do you think?

If you've got comments/questions, don't hesitate to reply to this
post, or email me off-list if you'd prefer.

Regards,

-- 
hanna m. wallach
blog: http://join-the-dots.org/
work: http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/hmw26/