[Kde-women] Re: flosspols survey

[Charles de Miramon]

B. L. Krieger wrote:

> 
> It is one aim of the flosspols project to provide an understanding of why
> there are so few women involved in free/libre/open source software (less
> than 2%) and to reccmmend measures to counteract this trend. So it would
> be of real help if you could support this survey.
> 

I still don't see how the study of the extraordinary women who are already
participating can give information why the majority are not participating.
Studying Margaret Thatcher won't give you much clue about the common
British woman.

My opinion after having a very minor role in the project for some 5 years,
is that the number of women will naturally increase as KDE becomes more
mainstream. What is hindering is the present volunteer pattern in Free
Software Project. Generally, you have a young man who will one day convert
to KDE, spend all his time and energy coding and sending zillions of
e-mails, then burn-out and leave. KDE (and other projects) have a very good
structure to capture the energy of generations of shooting stars. I think
that most women would be more interested in participation without full
conversion where they can volunteer time and work but keep other interests
and hobbies.

My point of comparison is roller-skating. When I was young in France,
roller-skating was a pure male activity. As a young teenager, you would
convert to roller skating, change your clothes, gather in small groups on
the specific spots in the city and practice for hours difficult figures
like a rat in a cage. There were some girls in the skater community but
they were a tiny minority. Today, roller-skating is mainstream, people do
it every Sundays with your friends or family and the sex ratio has become
standard. I believe this kind of mutation will happen also for Free
Software projects.

That is why it is maybe interesting to have a page describing jobs that you
can do in the KDE project that will fit your free time. Recruiting
volunteers is a very frustrating job. A lot of people will send an e-mail
and ask for information and then leave without going further. But, you have
to do it. By the way, I'm looking for somebody to help (and quickly take
the responsability) of doing promotional work for KDE in France. No need of
any technical expertise. It is a 2 hours / week job.   

Cheers,
Charles
-- 
http://www.kde-france.org