Story: Open source needs sex education

Posted by: raetsel (Wednesday 2 August 2006, 8:10 AM)

Sorry Norbert but I think you are overstating the case the article is making.

I don't think anyone would seriously say there is an active exclusion policy in Open Source rather that it can sometimes operate in an atmosphere that is not conducive to encouraging women to participate.

The ladish culture and sexist comments that can occur when people discover a contributor to a thread or irc channel is a woman is one part of the problem.

This has been highlighted by the women who despite this are active in the open source community.:- http://raetsel.wordpress.com/2006/07/31/women-in-open-source/

You can't explain away the lack of women in open source solely by the meritocracy argument I'm afraid.