Another "Women in Open Source" Session

[Danese Cooper]

Hey DWs! I ran into Mieke at ApacheCon Europe (and so soon after DebConf) and mentioned that I'm moderating a panel at OSCON called "Women in Open Source".  I gave a similar panel at Grace Hopper Conference last year to a packed audience by the end of the talk.  That one was by request of the conference organizers, which really isn't surprising because its a whole conference on Women in Technology...but nice to know that FOSS is on their radar :-). Anyway, the OSCON one is by request as well now that I think of it.  I've arranged for Bernhard Krieger to come over from France to present some of his findings as a beginning to the session, and I have some very visible women on the panel: Mitchell Baker (Mozilla), Allison Randall (Perl), Claire Giordano (OpenSolaris), Alolita Sharma (LinuxAsia Conference organizer and Managing Editor of Linux For You magazine) and Zaheda Bhorat (former Community Manager of OpenOffice.org, now at Google managing FOSS outreach for Europe/India)...and of course me :-). Bet an hour isn't gonna feel like enough. Here's the pointer and blurb: http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/os2005/view/e_sess/7039 The free software and open source movements are having a direct impact on the business of software development. Old business models are crumbling or being modified to fit a “no vendor lock-in” paradigm. As with the commoditization of any large industry, there are challenges to the status quo and opportunities for those who understand the change and how to use it to advantage. Because development of open source projects is conducted on the Internet by virtual teams with relative anonymity, there is a potential for loosening of traditional gender biases. Meritocratic governance models in many open source projects offer another potential area for the advancement of women in technology. Yet several independent studies of open source seem to confirm that only about 2% of the open source community of developers and leaders is female. This panel introduces you to five women who are working on the front lines of the open source movement. Take this opportunity to learn about the issues they encounter in the open source community. Topics covered include: -How is open source development different from closed source development? -What are the commonalities/differences in the experience of the panelists' involvement in open source? -What additional opportunities (if any) are available to women in the open source movement? -How are gender politics expressed in a globally distributed team? -What should women engineers do to influence the open source movement in positive ways? Danese Cooper Open Source Diva & New Debian Women list member ;-)