Re: Question to all: Outreach
Hi Adrian
On 2020/03/18 11:26, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:
> You also don't need much to do programming. I started with a C64 from my
> brother because I didn't even have my own computer and we didn't have
> an x86 machine before 1997 which also belonged to my parents and not me.
You hit a very important aspect of privilege in your mail here that I'm
not sure you're fully conscious of. Back in 1989, me and my little
buddies were typing BASIC in to a ZX-Spectrum so that we can play new
games. It was great and we learned a lot considering we were just 6 and
7 year olds.
At the same time, the girls in our street were playing with dolls
because you know, boys are supposed to play with Lego and computers and
girls are supposed to play with dolls and pink tea sets. At least,
that's the rules society systemically imposed on the world. Back then if
there were a microcomputer in the house, girls typically got very little
time on it.
It's easy to assume that "because I did it, anyone can", but the fact is
that if you compare boys and girls and computers, especially at our age,
the gender gap becomes massive because of all the problems that have
been imposed on us by the world out there.
And since it's not Debian's fault that the world is like this I suppose
it's fair of people to ask "But why is this Debian's responsibility to
solve!? Why should we commit any resources to solving this problem!?".
Honestly, I don't think it's a problem we can solve right now, but at
the very least, we should do whatever it takes to not be part of the
problem, and we should take every small step we can take to be the good
guys and help shift things toward equality.
Sure, this means that we might invest a lot of time, effort and money in
to some individuals that end up elsewhere. Maybe a woman who started out
with us ends up going to work for Red Hat. Maybe she comes back to
Debian and contributes skills she learned there back here. Maybe women
that got started with OpenSUSE outreachy initiatives end up here. I
think that's all ok, if all organisations keep contributing, then all of
them will eventually get some ROI out of it in terms of investing in people.
> I don't think the majority of people in the FOSS community can claims that
> they received a sponsorship early on to be able to join the community. On
> the contrary, most people will have probably spent a fair amount of money
> and their own leisure time to get things done, Linus Torvalds being one
> of the most prominent ones who didn't even have the money to pay for his
> first i386 machine in full but rather had to finance it through a loan.
Linus is an exceptional person and most people who had more than him
ended up being very mediocre. But even he had a lot going for him. He
went to a fancy university in Europe where he got to learn Unix/Minix
and he had his own 386. I think you're setting an unrealistically high
expectation if you want people who have less than that to have to aim as
high as being like Linus.
-Jonathan
--
⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ Jonathan Carter (highvoltage) <jcc>
⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ https://wiki.debian.org/highvoltage
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