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

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

Kathleen Danielson

October 18, 2017
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  1. Barriers to Entry in Open Source Kathleen Danielson 17 October

    2017 Or, why your flat hierarchies are ruining everything
  2. 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
  3. 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/
  4. 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
  5. 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
  6. What else can I do? So. Much. Stuff. • Make

    diversity a priority • Stop asking marginalized people to fix your community • Educate yourselves