Importance of women values in FLOSS

Time has gone since Open World Forum 2010, Paris, but this topic is on stage again. A recent paper appeared in Cepis Upgrade October 2010 issue, entitled “Information Technologies: A Profession for Men?” says: “women are currently under-represented in the technical areas of the IT”. Nothwithstanding they also say: “there is no reason why a profession should have to be balanced in gender terms”, their effort is in “provide the solutions, if any exists, to prevent female talent from being lost to a discipline and a profession which is destined to play a vital role in the progress of our society”.… Read the rest

Women in IT and Open Source: a controversial topic

Some time has passed since the Open World Forum, Paris took place, where I participated in the Diversity Summit: Why women matter? think tank.

You can download my presentation on the “Importance of women values in IT” here. I’ll also post an article about it on this blog soon.

Now, I just would like to highlight my feeling about this topic, as a result of my participation in the forum.… Read the rest

Gender diversity: why women matter in FLOSS

The agenda of the upcoming Open World Forum, Paris includes a Diversity Summit: Why women matter? The assumption is that “FLOSS still faces gender inequality, to an even greater extent than the wider IT industry which itself is seen as an area where discrimination is widespread.”

About the same topic, Free Software Foundation hosts a caucus about Women in Free Software; they recently published their initial findings and recommendations.

In 2007, Gartner released a research on the wider general topic “Women and men in IT: breaking through sexual stereotypes”, and hosted a debate in a Gartner summit.… Read the rest