Re: Q to both: "Debian outreachy" (was: Q to Chris: create our own outreach initiative)

[Chris Lamb <lamby@debian.org>]

martin f krafft wrote:

> What does "outreach" mean to you?

I fear I have a pretty mainstream interpretation of outreach; ie.
specifically "targeting" (or at least calling the attention of) groups
we perceive to be under-represented in our community and streamlining
their initial involvement in our project.

However, in Debian I believe this extends beyond gender etc. but also
with respect to geographic location, race, socio-economic background
and political outlook. It might be fair to say we remain somewhat of
a European project in both senses of that word.

Including folks that our outside of our norms are a huge potential for
Debian, not only in crude terms such as the untapped humanpower and the
technical ideas that were potentially outside of our point of view, it
simply makes the project more social, fun and enjoyable. Not only that,
how many times have you heard of Debian being (ab?)used in a some
unexpected context and thought "Huh, I feel pretty proud to have had a
small hand in that…".

I think we're doing a pretty good job already and this is helped by
being a rather anarchistic project to begin with — we appear to attract
a wider mix of people who like our approach to building things versus the
more "top-down" distributions.

We do, however, lack clear "next steps" in this area which cause me some
concern. As an illustration of this, I remember attending a Debian BoF
where there was universal agreement that diversity was a good thing but
when prompted with a question of "OK, so what shall we do?" there was
little advice beyond being welcoming, etc. being exchanged.

Without addressing this, we could end up simply paying lip service to the
concept to the detriment of all.


Regards,

-- 
      ,''`.
     : :'  :     Chris Lamb
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