Supporters brief-up
I guess after the bad taste in our mouths caused by me accidentally
inviting a vampire into our little home ;-) you girls (and supporting
boys) would want to see a little support from friendly Debian
Developers. I don't care about the supporters page anymore.
But I care about making up for the harrasing you have been through.
The original mail I sent out, with the help of Ian Murdock in wording my
English right :-)
(see how much support we have? The creator of Debian is all for Debian Women!)
Hi there!
I want to ask you a couple of questions, as a proof of concept,
for the Debian Women Project Website. Your answers will be
placed in the Supporters section, to show examples of men in the
project that are supportive of our effort to involve more women.
1 - Why do you think the Debian Women Project is important or
useful?
2 - How do you (would you be willing to) support women in Debian?
3 - What are you doing in Debian in general?
4 - Is there a picture of yourself you would like to be posted
along with your answers? If yes, please provide a URL.
5 - Is there any other question you would like other men to be
asked about?
6 - Is there any other question you would like women to be asked
about?
Thanks for your input; your answers will provide us with
valuable feedback. We are all involved in Free Software for
various reasons. Women may get involved for various reasons
too.
Your support makes a difference.
But you may already know about this email due to an unexpected reply to
the list :-(
One of the inquired DD stated that he was too busy but would get back to
me later. And he will :-)
There was also one answer that required further discussion, and I have
asked the guy for permission to discuss further on this list. I really
don't have the guts anymore for discussing anything here right now. I
also hope it doesn't become a huge flamewar, but I doubt it, as the
issue seems to be focused on positive discrimination versus motivation,
so it might become a very civil and enlightening thread.
I also think we need some kind of manifesto. Or Erinn's permission to
point people to the FAQ, which is a nice manifesto in itself :-)
I'm surprised to see how shy the guys are regarding to posting pictures
of them along their comments :-)
And this has only been since yesterday! And I didn't even get to the DD
I know will show stronger support, like Mako, Enrico, Steve...
BTW, The DPL didn't answer yet :-)
----- Forwarded message from Robert Millan -----
> 1 - Why do you think the Debian Women Project is important or useful?
I think every person who contributes to the project is important and
useful, regardless of sex (or race, religion, language, etc). Wrt the
sex of participants, sometimes I can't even tell if I'm addressing a man
or a woman because per has a foreign name, and I don't know which sex is
that name associated with.
> 2 - How do you (would you be willing to) support women in Debian?
In my opinion, women in Debian should be supported in the same way men
in Debian are: by providing them with assistance to help them learn and
eventualy participate and contribute.
> 3 - What are you doing in Debian in general?
I maintain a few packages and work in the GNU/k*BSD porting effort.
----- End forwarded message -----
----- Forwarded message from Juan Manuel Garcia Molina -----
Before answering the questions, I'll say I yet do not know the project
as much as I'd like. After a quick search, I've been surfing the web to
get the background needed to answer. So, let's go...
> 1 - Why do you think the Debian Women Project is important or useful?
Debian Women Project, as any other project is important and useful. As
one of the goals is involve women in Debian, I suppose the results will
be great.
While surfing for info, I took a look at the list archives and this
community appears to be very active.
> 2 - How do you (would you be willing to) support women in Debian?
An interesting question. Maybe we should let the project evolve. Maybe
the project will produce more projects to get the goals. Then, it should
be easy support projects generated by Debian Women.
> 3 - What are you doing in Debian in general?
The two main self-duties are packaging and translating. I also try to
help everywhere, for example reporting bugs or answering questions to
users. Basically, I try to get Debian better than it was before I
arrived ;-).
> 4 - Is there a picture of yourself you would like to be posted along
> with your answers? If yes, please provide a URL.
Hmmm. I don't remember to have posted any picture of myself. Anyway, the
aesthetic level of the site will get better without a picture of my
head.
I'd like to thank you for interviewing me and I'd like to wish the very
best for the project Debian Women.
----- End forwarded message -----
----- Forwarded message from "Aaron M. Ucko" -----
> 1 - Why do you think the Debian Women Project is important or useful?
There is no inherent reason for DDs to have such a skewed sex ratio;
consequently, it is almost certainly be the result of some incidental
cultural issues that should probably be addressed. (Of course, this is
much easier said than done, particularly given that the problem seems to
be largely self-perpetuating.)
In addition, any reasonable approach to make Debian friendlier to women
would probably have the effect of making it friendlier to everyone,
which would hardly be a bad thing.
> 2 - How do you (would you be willing to) support women in Debian?
In general, I try to remain polite and avoid intimidating anyone. I do
not really have time for anything more active, and generally feel that
we should keep any sort of discrimination in any direction to a minimum.
(In particular, I strongly feel that everyone should have to meet the
same standards during NM; anything else would be an insult to whatever
group got in easy. However, I have no objection to recruiting
under-represented populations more heavily, and am also okay with
minority-only fora.)
> 3 - What are you doing in Debian in general?
I maintain a handful of packages -- most notably, at least in terms of
effort, the library packages fltk1.1 and ncbi-tools6. I also
occassionally participate on some mailing lists. Oh, and I run unstable
and regularly fire off bug reports. ;-)
> 4 - Is there a picture of yourself you would like to be posted along
> with your answers? If yes, please provide a URL.
I think I'd prefer to remain photoless for now, thanks.
> We are all involved in Free Software for various reasons. Women may
> get involved for various reasons too.
Certainly; there's absolutely nothing about the movement that
specifically requires any particular set of reproductive equipment. ;-)
----- End forwarded message -----
--
.''`. Resistance is futile. You will be componentized.
: :' :
`. `' Proudly running Debian GNU/Linux (Sid 2.6.6 Ext3)
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