"Debian women may leave due to 'sexist' post"
I'm sure many of you on the list have already seen this:
"Debian women may leave due to 'sexist' post":
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/22320/1090/1/0/
And much of the related discussion. I'm surprised there hasn't been
discussion about it on this list. How are others feeling about all of
this?
First, let me say that I've primarily done work with the Ubuntu
project these past few years, and became a member of the project about
a year and a half ago. I help run Ubuntu Women, am on the Americas
Council and spend loads of my free time doing local advocacy through
the Ubuntu Local/Community team that I help run. That said, when it
comes to packaging, I started out doing work with Debian, and I've
stuck with it. I don't contribute a ton (only one package of my own,
one co-maintained and head up a Aloith project for LedgerSMB) and am
nowhere near being a Developer, but I've worked with some fantastic
people over the years and am comfortable continuing to do so. Right
now I'm at a place where I'm trying to decide where much of my future
time will be spent, both as far as advocacy vs development goes, and
Ubuntu vs Debian.
So, as for the subject of the email and after related threads on
debian-devel, this whole thing has all made me pretty sad. The general
culture of the project lately has made me feel uncomfortable and
unwelcome. A lot of people on debian-devel are talking about folks
being too sensitive, lacking humor, promoting censorship, and not
being accepting of other cultures enough to accept their humor. These
are all the things that scare me away from most F/OSS projects and
lately drawn me to be more involved with ones that have a Code of
Conduct (like Ubuntu and LedgerSMB).
If the Debian majority really feels and believes these things as a
culture, that's fine, maybe the feeling is that the harshness of
Debian lately is good for the project and acceptable, but that means
I'm not cut out for Debian. I doubt my involvement will ever go beyond
continuing to help to maintain a couple packages with some folks in
the project I feel safe with, and right now I really don't feel
comfortable sending women interested in getting involved with
development to Debian.
--
Elizabeth Krumbach // Lyz // pleia2
http://www.princessleia.com
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