We and our parents have made the net so filthy and dangerous that I’m glad to see someone stand up to clean it up. It is with great joy that I look forward to hand my children a safer, cleaner, purer Internet : the Cleanternet.
Four months ago I gave a talk titled the Blonde and the Scruffy Coder at the Chemnitzer Linux Tage in Germany. A video recording has just been released, so here are twenty-seven minutes of your host talking with a bigger-than-usual accent:
It has been an enormous pleasure being there in Chemnitz. The organisers of the CLT have a precisely and neatly-run event set-up, and have all my admiration and gratitude. Very fast diesel trains, icy wind gusts, a startlingly inexpensive luxury hotel, and long deserted housing buildings all also add-up to the memory.
Giving the talk has been furthering and joyful. I am indebted to Meike Reichle, whose talk preceded mine, for some thoughtful remarks during and after the talk. Some of these are online and I heartedly accept the criticism:
The talk itself, in my impression, left a few open issues though. It was rather brief and focussed mainly on stating the usual numbers, asserting that the Women in FLOSS movement wasn’t about affirmative action or discriminating men[,] explaining how women feel discriminated by sexist behaviour and advertising[,] and how objection to such things should not be mistaken as prudery. […]
What I missed most was practical advice to projects wishing to attract more female contributors, such as mentoring programs or low-threshold entry points.
Already a veteran both on that topic and in FLOSS communities, she comments:
[…] Instead of talking about how there should be more women in Free Software I’d rather just be one and try to encourage others with my example. The usual quota of female speakers at [Linux] events is somewhere between 2 – 4% and I just don’t like the idea of having a conference with n men talking about Free Software and 1 woman talking about women.
Nothing I’ve read or heard cuts it so well.
On March 14th, I will be giving a talk titled The Blonde and the Scruffy Coder at the Chemnitzer Linux-Tagen in Chemnitz, Germany.
The abstract simply says:
No doubt the best coding is done in the FLOSS community — but where are all the women?
As a bright, open community, we can do better than being 99% male, and it pays to care. In this talk, Olivier will be tackling a few clichés, trolls, and misunderstandings to clarify the situation. Find out:
– why this is a problem;
– why you should care about it, and
– how well it pays to care.Come and meet the Blonde and the Scruffy Coder in a story of love, frustration and passion — a story in which you are the hero.
I’ve been talking and writing about the problem of gender balance in online communities for almost two years now. This talk is based on a talk I gave last summer, in French, at the Rencontres Mondiales du Logiciel Libre in Mont-de-Marsan, which attracted lots of interest and discussion from both men and women.
Surely enough, talking doesn’t do much towards changing a problem whose roots are everywhere in our society. But it is my hope that I can at least spread a little awareness, by tackling the (often poorly-handled) problem in an entertaining and un-academic way.
The Chemnitzer Linux Tage (shorthand: CLT) is, in my opinion, the best free software conference in Western Europe, I recommend any FLOSS enthusiast with some knowledge of German pop by. Despite the nearly-1000-km ride, it’ll be a pleasure returning there.
