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

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Barriers to Entry in Open Source Kathleen Danielson 17 October 2017 Or, why your flat hierarchies are ruining everything

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Hello! @KathleenLD Producer @ Zalando Tech Previously: OpenStreetMap Foundation, Board of Directors Ada Initiative, Advisory Board

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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

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Is there really a diversity problem?

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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/

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Why does the diversity problem exist?

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Same old story Everything that makes the tech industry bad at diversity applies to Open Source

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Structurelessness Go read The Tyranny of Structurelessness right now. http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

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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

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What’s the difference between the tech industry and FOSS? There’s no HR department in Open Source

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What can I do about the diversity problem?

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Add Structure

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Get rid of your flat hierarchies Seriously, stop it. These are ruining everything.

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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

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What else can I do? So. Much. Stuff. ● Make diversity a priority ● Stop asking marginalized people to fix your community ● Educate yourselves

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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

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Thank you! Kathleen Danielson @KathleenLD