Women's participation in GNOME and other open source communities - Opportunities and Challenges in Asia Pacific regions.

1. Women's participation in GNOME and
other open source communities
Opportunities and Challenges in Asia Pacific regions.
Amanda Lam
2012.6.10

2. Who is Amanda Lam?
● BEng Computer Systems Engineering, University of
Warwick, UK
● Product Analyst and Technical Writer of a notable
Asian job site
● Founding Member of the Hong Kong MeeGo Network
● Executive Committee Member and Podcaster of the
Hong Kong PDA User Group (HKPUG)
● Developed Maemo 5 apps for Nokia N900
● Blogger and gadget product reviewer with Python language and Hildon/Gtk+
frameworks, such as eSpeak GUI Client
● Volunteered in unofficial Traditional Chinese
and Stroke Order Chinese Input Method
localisation projects of the Maemo 4 & 5 platforms
back in 2009 ● Recipient of the Nokia N950 developer
device via MeeGo Community Device
Program and developed various MeeGo
1.2 Harmattan apps for Nokia N9

3. Some interesting facts about women in computing...
● Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) was the world's first
computer programmer!
● Sophie Wilson designed the original Acorn computer in
1978 as well as the ARM instruction set.
● Marissa Ann Mayer, Vice President of Location and
Local Service of Google, designed and developed
Google's search interface.
● Mary Lou Jepsen, founder of Pixel Qi and CTO of
OLPC.
Image Courtesy: Wikipedia Commons

4. Some interesting facts about women in computing...
● In Hong Kong, % of women who
had used PCs in the last 12
months (67%) are slightly lower
than % of men (70.2%) in 2009.
Women in IT: The Facts, NCWIT's Workforce Alliance

5. Some interesting facts about women in F/OSS...
●
Only 1.5% of all Open Source Software developers are women!1
2
●
“The Athena Factor”: Women's Creator versus Executor Roles:
1
Nafus, Free/Libre and Open Source Software
2
Hewlett et al, The Athena Factor

6. So, what happened? Here are some reasons behind...
● Needs as users are not addressed
● Users’ discriminatory language online and offline
● The prevalence of text-based coding systems
(as opposed to graphic coding environments) Image Courtesy: Wikipedia Commons
● The F/OSS community’s male-centric competitive world-view
● Combative hacker ethic
● The difficulty of receiving adequate recognition for their contributions
● Less likely than men to have the level of computing expertise the F/OSS
community expects of new entrants
● Women generally first engage with computers at a later age or at a less
advanced level compared to men
Women in IT: The Facts, NCWIT's Workforce Alliance
Nafus, Free/Libre and Open Source Software
Lin, Gender Dimension of FLOSS Development

7. Asia-specific challenges
● In Asia, women's education level and
computer literacy are not as high as
men's, especially in developing
countries
● Gender stereotype on women's
employment and family roles
● Lack of intellectual property protection
Image Courtesy: Wikipedia Commons awareness
– High software piracy rate of
proprietary software
– Overall ignorance on F/OSS
concepts and software license terms
by the general public

8. Asia-specific challenges
● Lack of user community
● Lack of contribution culture
● Sales & services oriented economic
structure in some Asian countries
resulted in lack of R&D culture
– User:Developer ratio is much higher
– F/OSS is not promoted by the
government and in the education
sectors
Image Courtesy: Wikipedia Commons
– Prefer short term investment with
fast, guaranteed results rather than
long term investment with slow,
uncertain results

9. Men and women have different brains!
● Men's strengths
– Better in mathematics, logic and algorithms
– Stronger sense in directions and 3D stuffs
– Better leadership skills
– Result-oriented problem-solving
● Women's strengths
– Better communication skills
– Pay more attention to details
Image Courtesy: Wikipedia Commons
– Process-oriented problem-solving
– More caring and sensitive to what others think

10. What makes a great (F/OSS) product?
Thorough Research Proper UX
& Analysis Research & User Testing
Quality coding Intuitive UI Design
Great (F/OSS) Product
Comprehensive Easy-to-read
Testing & QA Documentation
Meaningful Translation Effective Marketing &
& Localisation Targeted Promotion

11. Women with different background and expertise can
definitely help to create great F/OSS products!
Thorough Research Proper UX
& Analysis Research & User Testing
Quality coding Intuitive UI Design
Great (F/OSS) Product
Comprehensive Easy-to-read
Testing & QA Documentation
Meaningful Translation Effective Marketing &
& Localisation Targeted Promotion

12. How can we encourage more women to participate in
GNOME and other F/OSS projects?
Expand the user base of
● Contributors need not be having
GNOME & F/OSS products Computer Science or any IT background.
● Recommend quality F/OSS products like
GNOME, GIMP, Firefox, Chromium,
LibreOffice, VLC etc. to your female
friends.
● Don't over-emphasise Free Software /
Users love the products Open Source concepts & philosophies –
most of them don't even know what
source code is! Emphasise the added
values over proprietary equivalents.
● If they love to use the products, let users
know they can actually contribute to the
products they are using.
Users are more willing to contribute

13. How can we encourage more women to participate in
GNOME and other F/OSS projects?
● Adjust your attitudes!
– Great products are not only about great coding.
Be less geeky! Speak Earth, human language!
– Respect women with different background, skill sets and
expertise.
– Welcome newcomers and be friendly.
– Appreciate and recognise any efforts they contribute.
– Give them chance to learn more about the projects by
allowing them to ask silly questions.
– Be consistent on how you communicate with women online
and offline.

14. GNOME Women
● A group dedicated to providing
encouragement for women to
contribute to GNOME
● GNOME Journal and documentation
writers Image Courtesy: GNOME Women
● Designers for wallpapers, icons,
window borders, and themes
● Translators of user interface and
documentation
● Marketing material preparation
● System administration
● Newcomer orientation
Image Courtesy: GNOME Women
● Check out more on
https://live.gnome.org/GnomeWomen

15. GNOME Women Outreach Program
● The GNOME Foundation, Google,
Mozilla, Collabora, the Free Software
Foundation, and Red Hat sponsored 10
internships this year.
● Projects could be coding, marketing,
documentation, design etc.
● Each participant with a $5,000 (USD)
stipend. $500 will be sent to participants
who have begun their internships, $2250
to participants in good standing with their
mentors, and $2250 to participants who
have successfully completed their
internships.
Image Courtesy: GNOME Women

16. Ubuntu Women
● Provide mailing list, forum, IRC channel,
Launchpad team and blog for Ubuntu women
users and contributors.
● Projects handled by women
– Documentation for each Ubuntu release
– Wiki editing and translations
● Community outreach via Full Circle
Magazine, Ubuntu Developer Summit, and
mentoring programs and courses. Image Courtesy: Ubuntu Women
● Check out more on
http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/

17. The Ada Initiative
● Launched in February 2011 by Valerie Aurora and
Mary Gardiner, named after Ada Lovelace.
● The Ada Initiative is a non-profit organization
dedicated to increasing participation of women in Valerie Aurora,
open technology and culture, which includes open Linux kernel developer
source software, Wikipedia and other open data,
and open social media.
● Conduct periodic survey of women in the open
technology and culture community, designed to
“take the temperature” of women’s participation in
open communities.
● Key presentations Mary Gardiner,
Director of Operations
● AdaCamp Unconferences and Research

18. ~ Thank you ~
Follow me at:
– Twitter: @amanda_lam
– Plurk: @amandalam
– Sina Weibo: http://weibo.com/amandalam
– LinkedIn: http://hk.linkedin.com/in/amandahoic
– Facebook: http://facebook.com/dadablog
– Blog (in Chinese): http://dadablog.net/