
The
open-source-software movement is commonly cited to have a
diversity problem. In some ways it reflects that of the general
gender disparity in computing, but in general is assumed to be even more severe. The same can be extended to the racial and ethnic diversity of the movement. "Diversity" in this article uses the academic
Critical Theory
A critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to reveal, critique and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from s ...
definition.
The topic has been and continues to be the subject of significant controversy within the open-source community.
Background
Open source software
Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Op ...
(OSS) is a non-traditional model of
software development
Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development inv ...
, where source code is created by a number of virtual volunteers and can be modified by other members of the community. The number of developers working on an OSS project can range from few to thousands but often in many projects, only developers deemed trustworthy by the project maintainers will have the privilege of making additions to the main repository.
The software developed is freely available for use and the number of users varies from few to many millions.
Over time, as OSS has continued to grow and offer new solutions to everyday problems, an increasingly diverse user base has continued to evolve.
With time and growing usage of OSS projects as new solutions, brings an increasingly diverse user base.
In comparison, since the creation of OSS in early 1990's, the community of OSS developers has remained dominated by young men.
Obstacles for inclusion
Hostile Culture
A common criticism levelled at the open source community is that critiques of code contributed to projects have a tendency to become personal attacks. In GitHub's 2017 survey, 50% of the 5,500 respondents claimed they had witnessed toxic interactions while working on open-source projects, and that 18% of them had suffered through a negative interaction.
Dismissive responses, conflict, and unwelcoming language were cited as the third, fourth, and sixth biggest problems with open-source respectively.
An oft-repeated sentiment throughout the community is that conflict isn't widespread, but rather quite visible, due to the public nature of forums and mailing lists. The figures, however, make this idea questionable. Some members of the community have cited the community's toxicity as the main reason for open-source's diversity problem.
Gender Bias
In 2017, 3 million "pull requests" were examined from 330,000
GitHub
GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, co ...
users, 21,000 of those were women, and found code written by women to be accepted more often (78.6%) than code written by men (74.6%).
In the cases of developers who were not insiders of a project and those whose gender was assumed identifiable by username or profile picture, code by men was approved at higher rates.
The presence of
gender bias
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers primaril ...
and its effect on lack of gender diversity within OSS communities is believed true by the researches involved in this project.
Gender diversity
The more recent entering of women into the OSS movement has been suggested as the cause of their underrepresentation in the field; of all women who had contributed to OSS up until 2013, 38.45% of them began to do so from 2009 to 2013, in comparison to only 18.75% of men.
The gender ratio in open source is even greater than the field-wide gender disparity in computing. This has been found by a number of surveys:
*A 2002 survey of 2,784 open-source-software developers found that 1.1% of them were women.
*A 2013 survey of 2,183 open-source contributors found that 81.4% were men and 10.4% were women.
This survey included both software contributors and non-software contributors and women were much more likely to be non-software contributors.
*A 2017 survey of 5,500 contributors to projects on
GitHub
GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, co ...
found that 95% of contributors were men and 3% were women.
In 2015
Red Hat started the Women in Open Source Awards, whose are as follows:
Racial and ethnic diversity
Developers identifying as ethnic and national minorities, specifically
Black people
Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often ...
and
Latinos are considered to be underrepresented in OSS.
* Of 5,500 Open Source developers surveyed in 2017, the representation of
immigrants
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, ...
, from and to anywhere in the world, was 26%.
* While 37.8% of professional
computer programmers
A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software.
A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...
in the U.S. workforce identified as ethnic or national minorities in 2017, only 16% did in Open Source.
Sexual minority diversity
A higher percentage of open-source contributors are members of a
sexual minority. A 2017 survey of 5,500
GitHub
GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, co ...
contributors found that 7% were
LGBT
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term i ...
compared to 4% of the general population.
A 2018 survey conducted by
StackOverflow found that out of their sample of 100,000, 6.7% identified as
LGBT+
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term is ...
, and 0.9% as
non-binary
Non-binary and genderqueer are umbrella terms for gender identities that are not solely male or femaleidentities that are outside the gender binary. Non-binary identities fall under the transgender umbrella, since non-binary people typicall ...
or
trans
Trans- is a Latin prefix meaning "across", "beyond", or "on the other side of".
Used alone, trans may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Trans (festival), a former festival in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
* ''Trans'' (fil ...
.
This suggests that the open-source community is roughly in line with the software industry's norm.
Notable LGBT+ members of the open-source community include:
*
Coraline Ada Ehmke
Coraline Ada Ehmke is an American software developer and open source advocate based in Chicago, Illinois. She began her career as a web developer in 1994 and has worked in a variety of industries, including engineering, consulting, education, ad ...
, transgender, creator of the
Contributor Covenant.
*
Jon "Maddog" Hall, gay, member of The Linux Professional Institute's board and early advocate of
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...
.
*
Sage Sharp, non-binary,
Linux kernel
The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ...
maintainer until 2015.
*
Josh Simmons
Josh is a masculine given name, frequently a diminutive ( hypocorism) of the given names Joshua or Joseph, though since the 1970s, it has increasingly become a full name on its own. It may refer to:
People A–J
* "Josh", an early pseudonym o ...
, bisexual, member of the
Open Source Initiative
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is the steward of the Open Source Definition, the set of rules that define open source software. It is a California public-benefit nonprofit corporation, with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.
The organization w ...
board since 2016.
Organizations and Programs
LinuxChix is a women-oriented Linux community encouraging participation in Linux OSS by creating conflict-free and nurturing environments for women to do so. The diversity initiative
EquitableTech targets minorities in OSS by offering skill training for Black and Latino computer science students with goal of increasing diversity in OSS.
Several organisations have been set up with the intention of boosting the visibility of the open-source community's LGBT+ members. Examples includ
Trans*H4ckTrans Code an
Lesbians Who TechTrans*H4CK
was the first transgender "hackathon" with goal of bringing awareness to issues specific to the transgender community. After launching in 2013, it has increased visibility of transgender technologists and entrepreneurs in the technology industry.
Programs
Some FOSS projects have programs to support women.
*
Debian
Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of De ...
Debian Women*
KDE
KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-known products include the ...
KDE Women*
GNOME ProjectGNOME Women
The
Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation (LF) is a non-profit technology consortium founded in 2000 as a merger between Open Source Development Labs and the Free Standards Group to standardize Linux, support its growth, and promote its commercial adoption. Addi ...
has
diversity program
References
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''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fran ...
[{{Cite web , last=Cambra , first=Claudio , url=https://www.codethink.co.uk/articles/2019/acceptance-strife-and-progress-in-the-lgbtiq-and-open-source-communities/, title=Acceptance, strife, and progress in the LGBTIQ+ and open source communities , work=CodeThink , date=2020-06-27 , access-date=2019-07-01]
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[{{cite news , last1=Demby , first1=Gene , title=Why Isn't Open Source A Gateway For Coders Of Color? , url=https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/12/05/248791579/why-isnt-open-source-a-gateway-for-coders-of-color , access-date=2020-10-03 , publisher= NPR , date=2013-12-05]
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Diversity in computing
Open-source movement