Free Software

Code is copyable, modifiable, and free to share.

Open Source

Development is open, decentralized, and collaborative.

Libre

Highlighting “free as in freedom” not as in freeware, gratis, or “free as in beer.”

FLOSS/FOSS

Free, libre, and open source software.

Free culture

Software, prose, or media that “can be freely studied, applied, copied and/or modified, by anyone, for any purpose.”

Geeks

A geek has a passionate enthusiasm.

Good “stuff”

• Linux and Apache
• the Web
• Firefox, Safari, and Chrome
• Wikipedia

Good community

• open and accessible
• meritocratic
• free (to “fork”)
• fun / geeky

The gap

Women occupy 27% of computing-related positions.

In FLOSS, women are 1.1%.

At Wikipedia, women are ~9%.

Androcentrism

Assuming a male audience and dude humor.

(Not the end of the world, but not helping.)

For example …

e.g., Shuttleworth’s girls

A release is an amazing thing; I’m not talking about the happy ending…

Your printer, and your mom’s printer, and your grandma’s printer…

We’ll have less trouble explaining to girls what we actually do. (Shuttleworth in Schroder 2009)

e.g., Stallman’s virgins

And we also have the cult of the virgin of emacs. The virgin of emacs is any female who has not yet learned how to use emacs. And in the church of emacs we believe that taking her emacs virginity away is a blessed act. (Garrett 2009)

Sexism

Blah blah blah. This kind of whiny bullshit about unimportant details is exactly why women should be left out in the cold.

Misogyny

I pray you find your way into a feminist unfriendly country one day. God willing, you will die. Happily the feminist-unfriendly countries are immigrating to you. Remember the Netherlands? Feminists die there.

Why?

“Free as in freedom” = “Free as in Sexist”?

• geek identity
• openness
• freedom

The geek stereotype

• young white male
• obsessed
• argumentative

Comic book guy