Re: debian-women obscurity, was: Clarification about krooger's platform
Hi Martin!
<friendly email follows>
martin f krafft wrote:
> Why is it called debian-women?
Because the effort, the project, is aimed at increasing the involvement
of women in Debian. So debian-women as a name made perfect sense :)
> Aren't there also men, some shy, some merely put off by the roughness
> of this project, or many other reasons, who would welcome a warmer
> environment?
No, you are wrong, that's debian-devel :)
When I first became a developer, I found debian-devel frightening,
hostile and very intimidating, I must admit this was not so because of
gender issues. And I am not a person that is usually described as shy,
or put off by roughness (hmm, maybe roughness does put me off in the
context of a collaborative effort, but I am not specially affected by
it).
> I fully support debian-women as there is obviously demand for it.
Thanks for the support, even if lukewarm. When I first started thinking
about women in Debian I had no idea there was such demmand at all, it
was more of a personal issue "ok, so there's the linuxchix, what's wrong
with Debian?"
Debian offered some numbers that I was not able to easily obtain from
other projects, such as a total amount of developers, and an estimate of
females in there. (Worrying figures, BTW). Meeting Susan in Debconf 2 at
Toronto was key, had she been more visible in Debian, at least to me, I
would have probably never given the gender issue that much thought, or
maybe I would :) Visibility is key. That's another reason why the
project is not called Deian Love (as the project called Gnome Love) or
Debian Janitors, or even Debian Mentors (sounds familiar?).
Visible women in the project make other women feel better about using
and helping Debian. Other women may need a more wellcoming environment,
and that's perfectly fine with me, and very desirable, on the other
hand. My needs were different, but if Debian Women is also providing a
less frightening entry way into Debian, I couldn't feel any prouder
:))))) As there's is absolutely no seggregation in the debian-women
environment, men can benefit, and I'm sure *do* benefit, from this
wellcoming climate too.
> However, I often wonder why sets of problems are solved under a
> "superficial" label, when they really exist way further down the
> crust?
I don't think I understand your claims here.
> Or: is the problem really sexism?
No, IMHO, that's just part of the problem.
> Or is it just that the environment is not particularly friendly to
> women, who have different preferences for social interaction than men?
That looks like a strong point too.
> If so, then why not solve the problem further down (through
> sensibilisation and competence to not answer every flamebait or take
> things personally in such public formums),
Excuse me, are we talking about the same public forums? :)
I have little hope for that to happen.
On the other hand, I have the feeling I will be originating a huge
trolling thread, just as the last time I posted to debian-vote regarding
this same subject one year ago :) At this point, this thread probably
belongs somewhere else...
> rather than segregating the sexes explicitly?
Again:
> also sprach Thomas Bushnell BSG <tb@becket.net>
> [2005.03.06.0242 +0100]:
> > But debian-women contributors include both men and women.
This is actually what you were answering to. There's no sex segregation.
But there's a strong emphasis in *visivility*.
> And most of the above applies -- to varying degrees -- to other
> classifications of the Debian supporters, be it language, ice cream
> favourites, or cdbs-vs-debhelper preference.
I'd love to see groups like debian-chocolate-lovers, debian-nudists
(gnudists?), debian-corporate, or debian-world-domination emerge.
The way I see it, there's more to Debian than just a technical side. And
this applies to Free Software efforts in general. There's a community
behind Debian (what I usually call The Big Disfunctional Family or the
Cult, in my jokes) that makes us different and unique. Taking care of
the social aspects of Debian is important to the health of the project
<joke>
(specially now that we know Sarge will never be released and have
become just a software repository for others to pull exceptionally
well packaged software from. No pun intended here, really)
</joke>
Just as key as releasing, qa-ing, bug fixing, trolling and
ftpmasters-bashing. So while technical workgroups are naturally
wellcome, such as debian-custom, or debian-bsd (did I say wellcome?) ;),
I find that the debian-women project has a different nature and
so does debian-user-spanish, debian-curiosa or debian-uk.
At this point I can't remember the topic anymore and I have no idea what
I really wanted to say in the first place... :)
Oh, yes. So all these groups of Debian supporters, be it language, ice
cream favourites, or vi-vs-emacs preference are good for the project.
This makes me remeber Andreas' talk in Oslo: Why tetrinet is good for
Debian:
http://ukai.jp/Slides/2003/0725-fsij/july19.html:
Why tetrinet is good for Debian
tetrinet - stockholm Andreas Schuldei
12:00-12:45
* debian as a social group
* distinct features of growing groups
* empowering leadership
* gift-oriented work
* Debian's Vision: The Social Contract
* loving relationship
* respect each other
http://www.debian.org/events/2003/0718-debconf-report
"Next came a talk by Andreas Schuldei entitled "Why tetrinet is good for
Debian". I arrived late, so I still don't know, what tetrinet is, but he talked
about the social structure of Debian, and what is so special about it. Quite
interesting and also funny presented."
Sadly, there are no available slides that I know of.
Hey, now that I think of it, he also gave a talk on Debian-bsd in Toronto
the previous year... so this guy always gives talks on very controversial
issues ;) http://www.hyperpoem.net/debconf/debconf2.html
And guess what? Matthew Garrett was in that talk too, which makes it two DPL
candidates in the same controversial talk! (Now I really hope that this makes
up for the offtopic on d-vote). Here is a slide from that talk that is worth seeing:
http://fotos.amayita.com/Debconf_3/abd. The acceptance issue justifies my claim
that the talk was controversial. It looks like supporting 3 or 4
different kernels in Debian while the kernel packaged as kernel-image is
just Linux is a clear case of "kernelism". I can't seem to find Robert
Millan's ITP on the issue.
Well, this has gotten quite long already. Thanks for reading this far.
--
.''`. What does not destroy me, makes me stronger. - Nietzsche
: :' :
`. `' Proudly running Debian GNU/Linux (Sid 2.6.10 Ext3)
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