Barriers to Entry in Open Source, or why your flat hierarchies are ruining everything

Transcript

1. Barriers to Entry in Open Source Kathleen Danielson 17 October 2017 Or, why your flat hierarchies are ruining everything
2. Hello! @KathleenLD Producer @ Zalando Tech Previously: OpenStreetMap Foundation, Board of Directors Ada Initiative, Advisory Board
3. Quick Notes • Diversity is not just about gender. There’s also sexual orientation, ethnicity, age, ability, or many other dimensions. • Underrepresented people are not necessarily newbies, but newbie-friendly communities are more diverse
4. Is there really a diversity problem?
5. I know you love research Github’s 2017 survey of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) developers revealed that 95% of respondents identified as male. http://opensourcesurvey.org/2017 “[W]omen’s pull requests tend to be accepted more often than men’s, yet women’s acceptance rates are higher only when they are not identifiable as women. [...P]lausible explanations include the presence of gender bias in open source, survivorship and self-selection bias, and women being held to higher performance standards.” Emphasis added. https://peerj.com/articles/cs-111/
6. Why does the diversity problem exist?
7. Same old story Everything that makes the tech industry bad at diversity applies to Open Source
9. Structurelessness Go read The Tyranny of Structurelessness right now. http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm
10. Impacts of Structurelessness • Explicit power structures are replaced with implicit ones • • Unknown processes mean that newbies will be shamed • No expected checks on bad behavior • New people won’t succeed
11. What’s the difference between the tech industry and FOSS? There’s no HR department in Open Source
12. What can I do about the diversity problem?
13. Add Structure
14. Get rid of your flat hierarchies Seriously, stop it. These are ruining everything.
15. What is structure in FOSS? • Have a project maintenance team • Codes of Conduct • Just write down how your community works. • Thorough startup docs • • What are the norms and expectations for PRs? Add it in CONTRIBUTING.md
16. What else can I do? So. Much. Stuff. • Make diversity a priority • Stop asking marginalized people to fix your community • Educate yourselves
17. Recommended Reading Educate yourself! • http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm • http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Geek_Femi nism_Wiki • https://adainitiative.org/ • Anything by bell hooks
18. Thank you! Kathleen Danielson @KathleenLD