Nicolas, We do have enormous parts of the world which do not participate much in Apache (and thus are isolated)
There are limits to participation ... perhaps not EXplicit limits, but there are definitely IMplicit limitations. And please provide some basis for your claim that there are Apache projects are do not have a majority of straight white males. In fact, I will up the ante .. let's say straight white males from the US and western Europe. Are you thinking of a few groups like Singa or Kylin that have a surprisingly large number of participants from Asia? Those are almost the exception that proves the rule. And, by the way, the argument for diversity is a bit more substantial than your strawman argument. The real argument is that diverse experience and expertise leads to better solutions because with a community made up of nearly identical members, these members will tend to have very similar blindspots. A great example of this is ASCII. The developers (English speakers in the US in the late 50's and early 60's) saw no real problem with omitting ü, å, ø and ñ. Even when the community broadened to include speakers of German, Danish, French, Spanish, Swedish and other languages, it took many decades to correct the limitations of ASCII. More diversity earlier would have saved some of that pain. I have seen many other examples in my career where early designs had horrendous problems that could have easily been avoided with a bit broader set of points of view. A mono-culture may get started more quickly and be more comfortable early on, but a diverse community is likely to give us a much better result. On Sat, Jul 13, 2019 at 6:14 PM Niclas Hedhman <[email protected]> wrote: > The argument goes something like this (strawman warning); By expanding our > communities with identifiably under-represented groups (that should have an > interest in what the ASF is doing) will bring additional points of view, > new ideas, ways to do things, cultural input to the software and such. > > Personally, I don't think our communities are like society as a whole, > because a) we are not isolated geographically, b) has no limitation on > joining our efforts and c) straight, white males is an under represented > group in some projects, and answering "why?" for that, will most likely > answer the question on a broader scale for what makes ASF different. But > that is probably a too sensitive topic to touch on... > > Niclas > > On Sun, Jul 14, 2019 at 2:52 AM Awasum Yannick <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Hi All, > > > > Do we have resources on the advantages of D&I to the Foundation and Tech > > industry in general? > > > > I know this has been touched in different threads all over the lists but > I > > wanted a separate thread to really understand the advantages. > > > > Is it about under represented people participating and contributing their > > opinions and experience to make a project, product or community better? > > > > I am interesting in the real benefit of D&I to people who are well > > represented. What will motivate an over represented person to do D&I > work? > > Is there a logical advantage or benefit to them? > > > > Sorry, if this is off topic but I have not been able to answer it from > the > > perspective of an over represented person. Because, I keep asking myself > > why will someone who enjoy privilege be willing to change things if they > > dont see a benefit for them(self interest). > > > > > > Thanks. > > Awasum. > > > > > -- > Niclas Hedhman, Software Developer > http://polygene.apache.org - New Energy for Java >
