[TriLUG] More data [Was: Palmer for another SC term; proposed amendment to the bylaws]

[Brandon Van Every]

On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 11:18 AM, Brandon Van Every <bvanevery at gmail.com>wrote:

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>
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> On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 9:34 PM, Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com>wrote:
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>> On Mon, 29 Apr 2013 23:48:00 -0400
>> Cristóbal Palmer <cmp at cmpalmer.org> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> http://www.flosspols.org/deliverables/FLOSSPOLS-D16-Gender_Integrated_Report_of_Findings.pdf
>>
>> Throughout this article is the implication "Bad Men!", even going so
>> far as to place blame our having beards, and even going so far as to
>> blame the bazaar method of software development that's been working so
>> well for a couple decades.
>>
>>
> You mean you're gonna make me read the article in detail, to see if
> there's any reason why I should believe your appraisal of it?
>

Ok, I got to the one place where they talk about beards, on page 25.  It
says that male hackers in Paris have a disproportionate number of beards
compared to societal norms, and that this is part of a countercultural
dress code.  This is not "placing blame," this is a statement of
ethnographic fact.  If you are interpreting observations like this as
"placing blame," then I submit that you feel threatened by this paper and
are interpreting it on that basis.  I will continue to read until I find
the discussion about "bazaar" development methodologies.  If I think you're
interpreting it in the same way, I'll make no further comment and rest my
case.


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>> Personally, I don't think it's the responsibility of any LUG to cure the
>> underrepresentation of women in tech, open source or Linux.
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>
> Whose is it then?  If there is something wrong in open source, where is
> that supposed to be addressed?
>
>
To reiterate: just because a goal is difficult, doesn't mean we have zero
responsibility for making an effort towards it.  Open source in general
wouldn't function without some amount of ideological belief in the face of
a world that overwhelmingly doesn't share the perspective.


Cheers,
Brandon