FSF leadership

[Paul Brown]

On viernes, 20 de septiembre de 2019 1:02:29 (CEST) Valorie Zimmerman wrote:
> Good question, Jake.
> 
> On Thu, Sep 19, 2019 at 3:07 PM Jay tay <jacobantaya-91 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Why does race, gender etc. Even have to be discussed. More politics in a
> > non political place. I'd rather talk about tech and furthering this
> > project. This is ridiculous.
> > 
> > --
> > Jake A.
> > 
> ::snip old::
> The reason the issue is important is that many of our potential
> contributors have been driven away, and are now being driven away. This
> hinders our tech development. Sorry, anywhere humans collectively do things
> together is by definition "political".
> 
> Our discussion is all about furthering this project and the FOSS community
> as a whole, so we can make good tech that suits the needs of all of us.
> 
> Valorie

Before anybody starts bringing up the "M" word, I have to point out that 
without a sane inclusivity policy you cannot have a true meritocracy.

As mentioned here https://blogs.gnome.org/markmc/2014/01/12/openstack-meritocracy-and-diversity/:

"[I]n some circles, the concept of “meritocracy” has been seriously 
discredited and represents a system whereby elites perpetuate their power by 
tilting the rules in favour of themselves."

One of those many circles include Free Software, unfortunately.  Look down 
from the stairs in Building K at FOSDEM and it is a sea of white males until 
the horizon. Interestingly enough, Brussels, the city that hosts FOSDEM year 
after year, is variegated society, with plenty non-whites and non-males. Just 
ride on the tram to FOSDEM and you will meet plenty of them. 

If the most accepted concept of meritocracy were true, if all it took were the 
skills of non-white and non-males to achieve a foot in Free Software, why are 
they not there?

Surely nobody here can seriously imply that non-whites and non-males lack the 
intellectual capacity to reach the knowledge to be productive members of the 
FLOSS community, right? 

So if it isn't that it is something else, more likely that the community is 
maybe passively, if not actively, creating barriers for people who are non-
white or not-male, making us an "elite [that] perpetuates their power by 
tilting the rules in favour of themselves."

Read the whole article to understand how insidiously subtle this can be. It's 
worth it even only because it helps to identify at least one of those areas, 
although my guess is that there are more.

Paul
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