Hey Sruthi On 2020/03/29 20:39, Sruthi Chandran wrote: > Hello Jonathan and Brian, > > I have a couple of questions for both of you. > > - What are your thoughts on diversity in Debian? > > - Are we diverse enough? Since there's a big amount of overlap with these two questions, I'll try to answer them in one go. There's many kinds of diversity, and some of them we cover in Debian quite well. Others, not. It's clear when you go to DebConf that a very large percentage of our contributors are white and male. Nothing wrong with being white and male of course, but if you compare our project membership with the world outside of Debian, then it becomes clear that our demographics are very skewed. In particular, we have a very small percentage of women and non-white people in the project. There are some people (even within Debian) that feel threatened by the kind of text above, they feel that someone who's other than them will step in and make them less valued somehow. This is not how diversity works, we can all grow and become more enriched when we attract people who bring new perspectives and experiences with them. One of the problems I think we face is that the people who tend to be minorities in Debian tend to be people who are also already disenfranchised in the world. For example, just in my country (South Africa), more than half the people live on less than $5 a day and even just a decent internet connection cost a considerable amount of a typical income. Too many people rely on their income they generate today so that they can have dinner tonight. It's understandable that, people in that position, who already get up at 5am to get at work on time, and only get back home at 9pm again because public transport is so horrible, will be less enthusiastic to spend the little free time they have to work for free on a project. Another quick example are single parents, more than 80% of single parents are women. If you have to provide for your kids and take care of them, you're going to have a tough time learning new skills and contributing to new projects. It's an unfortunate problem that the very ability to contribute to free software relies on all the kind of privilege that gives you things like stability and free time. It's a bit of a catch-22 situation since learning about free software and contributing to it could also help people to get better jobs and ultimately improve their living conditions. I don't have all the answers when it comes to diversity in Debian, but I think we should do everything we can to be part of a solution and not part of the problem. We don't have control over all the gender and race problems in the world, but we can do our part to make Debian a safe and welcoming place for all contributors. With that I don't necessarily mean that we should all be friends in a perfect little world with unicorns that poo out rainbows and such, but I mean it in a practical sense. For example, if someone has an idea and want to argue for it, they should've feel that their opinion means any less because of their background or that they're some kind imposter because they might look or feel different than other people. And if their idea isn't all that popular, they should feel comfortable with the idea that it was on technical merits and not because of them. Recently there's been some concerns raised on return on investment with diversity spending. I'm fully aware that we'll invest some considerable time and money on some people who will end up disappearing working at some big company or find some other free software niche that they enjoy. I think this is just fine. Some have pointed out that we might be able to get more bang for buck if Debian had its own funded diversity programs. In that case I think it's better to add more spending than to switch out existing programs for it. I think it's important to talk about some things that we're doing right in Debian. Our relatively recent additions of the code of conduct and diversity statement lays some groundwork to making Debian a more accepting and diverse project. And even though our contributors might look similar at a quick glance, I don't think that we're a monoculture either. Talk is cheap, and I don't think yelling "diversity! diversity! diversity!" helps making a project any more diverse than yelling "developers! developers! developers!" will attract more developers. As DPL, I will be very eager to approve any spending that can bring new contributors to Debian, but we would still need people to step up and help make those kind of projects happen. I don't think that diversity should be squarely the responsibility of the DPL, but the DPL should certainly be there to help enable any initiatives and ideas that our project members have. -Jonathan -- ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ Jonathan Carter (highvoltage) <jcc> ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ https://wiki.debian.org/highvoltage ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋ https://debian.org | https://jonathancarter.org ⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀ Be Bold. Be brave. Debian has got your back.
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