Aw: Re: Debian participation into GNOME Outreach Program for Women

Hello,

Gesendet: Freitag, 05. April 2013 um 09:45 Uhr
Von: "Andreas Tille" <andreas@an3as.eu>
An: debian-project@lists.debian.org
Cc: debian-women@lists.debian.org
Betreff: Re: Debian participation into GNOME Outreach Program for Women

Hi,

On Thu, Apr 04, 2013 at 07:52:18PM -0400, Brian Gupta wrote:
> OK from my reading of
> https://live.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen#For_Organizations_and_Companies
> it seems that Debian can be a participating "project", without also
> being a financial sponsor. IE: We provide mentors and help select the
> best project submissions. I think this sounds like a great idea, and
> we should definitely pursue it. (Assuming my understanding is
> correct.)

I agree that at least in my perception Debian is way better in terms of
providing knowledge rather than in providing money. So we should rather
provide in what we are good in (mentoring, programming skills) and not
what we are no experts in (dealing with money) to external projects. I
do not have trouble personally in spending the money on OPW but I would
also see a similarly fair use of the GSoC org money to keep on
sponsoring DebConf newbees and explicitly prefer women who apply for the
support. IMHO this fullfills the same intention to lower the entrance
barrier for women into the Free Software world.

In short: This is no veto against OPW support rather a slight reminder
whether we are just jumping enthusiastically on a train (which
admittedly goes in the right direction) before we have sorted out all
ways to spend this Debian money to support women inside Debian.

I agree with Andreas in that we have many ways still open for us to communicate the technology and Debian as a society to outsiders. Having a focus on those issues that females have most problems with to tolerate / understand may help our project at large. I would be particularly interested to learn about how Debian is perceived by female geeks in other disciplines, e.g. those performing research in various sciences or areas of engineering, and how Debian compares to the perceived more user-friendly Ubuntu. This would also transform the perception of money spent from "giving to women because they are not techie enough to get the idea by themselves" to "give the money to women because they sense and verbalise issues that males are more likely to fail to communicate". If our participation in OPW gives such concerns some sort of a platform, then I am fully up for it. That said, I whole heartedly also feel with Sune that for the technology alone we should not invest so much - anyone could do it, even males. For the money one should then rather support local workshops and support those female aspiring geeks directly who have some interest than going for a single project - 100 times more effective, I tend to think.

Cheers,

Steffen