Sarah M Riggs. Adapt, Act, or Rebel? Constructing a Narrative about Women in Free and Open Source Software. A Master’s Paper for the M.S. in I.S. degree. August, 2011. 153 pages. Advisor: Paul Jones Free and open source software is no longer limited to traditional software developers creating products to satisfy their own needs, but people with varied skills sets are coming together to satisfy the needs of a growing consumer base. With increasing diversity in consumers, comes the need to increase the diversity of participants. However, previous reports suggest that women compose less than five percent of FOSS contributors. Researchers often construct a view of FOSS that only acknowledges the men and the programmers, and the research on women focuses on barriers to participation. This paper focuses on the diversity that is inherent in a multicultural and geographically distributed environment by interviewing twenty women and men: ambassadors, artists, packagers, programmers, translators, and writers. The purpose of this paper is to outline how participants navigate their community using a combination of technical, social, and cultural skills, and highlighting when actions are implicitly and explicitly gendered. Headings: Software – Open Source Software Gender – Women Gender Equity ADAPT, ACT, OR REBEL? CONSTRUCTING A NARRATIVE ABOUT WOMEN IN FREE AND OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE by Sarah M Riggs A Master’s paper submitted to the faculty of the School of Information and Library Science of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Information Science. Chapel Hill, North Carolina August 2011 Approved by _______________________________________ Paul Jones 1 SUMMARY Though free and open source software (FOSS) contributors say that participation in a project is about “scratching your own itch”, modern participants are just as likely to reach over to scratch the itches of others. Free and open source software has a history of being designed by engineers and programmers and for engineers and programmers; however, an increasing number of non-technical are beginning to use it. For the software to proliferate and allow democratic access, the contributors must make software that is usable, has seamless installation, and has a body of documentation that is understandable by increasingly diverse audiences. To develop better software with a better support network, FOSS communities must seek participants who can bring a new perspective to the software. A sampling of FOSS projects includes some pertaining to art, education, fashion, games, genealogy, music, operating systems, programming languages, public health, and social networking. There are potential contributors who can offer skills in these areas, but are being excluded. Women constitute only a small percentage of contributors, and individuals and organizations have begun to address that issue through women oriented communities, and conference codes of conduct1. In July of 2011, an OSCON keynote address spoke to the need for acceptance of diverse individuals in open source by addressing the harmfulness of discrimination through Alan Turing's untimely death2. A popular how-to website lists ways to encourage women contributors3. The Ada Initiative has started a fund raising 2 campaign to encourage women to participate in open source4. There are also several internal efforts from open source projects to actively welcome and recruit more women into open source. This includes women’s groups within major Linux distributions5, and programs for engaging underrepresented and underserved groups in development6. Those initiatives invite people involved with FOSS to acknowledge diversity; but do men and women relate to gendered ideas as they are navigating their communities? Through interviews of twenty women and men in the FOSS community, the following research uncovers four themes that illuminate some of the social, cultural and technical skills of diverse open source contributors. First, FOSS contributors are able to identify and obtain the skills (technical and social) they need to succeed. Second, they recognize that other people are integral to their personal success and the success of the project. Third, they have a critical understanding of their environment that is shaped by individual experiences. Fourth, gender permeates those aforementioned qualities and women must decide to fit into the current culture, fight against it, or change communities. LITERATURE REVIEW Organizational Diversity Diversity scholars have repeatedly maintained that diversity is beneficial for organizational success. In for profit business, age, gender, and racial diversity can cause economic and market gains (Herring, 2009). As FOSS projects are typically disproportionately gendered, it cannot reap the benefits that teams composed of equal numbers of women and men provide; Frink et al. (2003) have shown that gender proportionate teams positively effect performance. 3 Context is an important part of undertaking a study of diversity. Jehn, Northcraft, and Neal’s (1999) study of organizational diversity found that age and gender diversity in groups increased “satisfaction, intent to remain, perceived performance, and commitment” (p. 757). However, those authors give the caveat that the effects of additional factors such as diversity in professional and educational background or personal values are difficult to separate from the effects of social (age and gender) diversity (1999). Jackson et al. (2003) suggest that a qualitative narrative approach may illustrate those additional factors that effect group work beyond basic demographics. Women in Open Source Out of over 600 of articles addressing open source (Aksulu & Wade, 2010) there are only a handful of published papers discussing gender and FOSS. Lin's (2006) essay addresses the lack of a feminist perspective addressing FOSS. An exploratory survey of 37 women in open source identified some barriers to participation, but also mentions that the FOSS community members may be less aligned with generally accepted stereotypes such as “antisocial” (Powell, Hunsinger, & Medlin, 2010, p. 35). The National Center for Women in Information Technology (2007) published a literature review booklet concerning open source cultural studies which is prefaced by the acknowledgment that there is lack of research devoted to gender studies. After it was discovered through a demographic survey that women comprised approximately 1.1% of participants, a team of researchers conducted an ethnographic study which addressed women in FOSS (Ghosh et al., 2002; Nafus, Leach, & Kriegar, 2006). That ethnography illuminated the ways in which women are being excluded from open source through social and technical barriers including long hours, offensive and 4 abusive language, and access to a technical skill set (2006). The research culminated in economically oriented suggestions to decrease the gender gap. It is very possible that the demographics have changed since the Ghosh et al. Survey (2002), but there has yet to be another large scale empirical study that would show a current ratio of women and men in FOSS or one that examines participants that have roles other than coding. Though it is valuable to identify the negative forces effecting participation of women in FOSS, it is also a necessary compliment to identify the factors that cause success which can be used to encourage women to develop and sustain interest in FOSS. Women in Computing Though few researchers have focused on women in open source, many have studied women in information technology with the intent to develop policies which will decrease gender discrepancies at the K-14, graduate, and professional level. Though this study includes women who do non-technical jobs within FOSS, it is a technology based community. Researchers studying women in computer science departments have uncovered some reasons for low enrollment and retention similar to those reasons effecting women in FOSS. These include a lack of positive female role models as well as pervasive gender based stereotyping from an individual’s job, educational system, and the media (Clayton, Von Hellens, & Nielson, 2009; Margolis & Fisher, 2002). Margolis and Fisher (2002) conducted a sociological analysis of women computer science majors at Carnegie Melon to identify reasons for the high rate of women leaving the computer science department to pursue other majors. They identified deeply ingrained social constructs causing students to enter the Carnegie Mellon undergraduate computer 5 science department with experiences that have caused biases against computing, such as an educational system that has suggested that men are better at math and computing, causing women to have less experience and confidence (2002). Based on the findings, the department subsequently implemented an institutionally successful plan that introduced change in beginning curriculum, an emphasis on pedagogy, and high school recruitment. (Margolis & Fisher, 2002). As the present research selected participants from eight countries, it is worthwhile to examine international articles on women and computing to develop an understanding of the political and cultural context from which the participants are speaking. Galpin (2002) showed that globally, the number of women in information technology ranged from 10% to 40%, with variation, and suggests that cultural influences are a cause of these numbers. Madeiros (2006) suggested that