On Jul 28, 2006, at 9:03 PM, Roy T. Fielding wrote:
On Jul 28, 2006, at 7:49 AM, Jean T. Anderson wrote:
The [EMAIL PROTECTED] mail list was created in August 2005; the
initial
charter is at http://wiki.apache.org/Women/InitialCharter .
We now want to take it to the next step and create a formal committee
(see the forwarded post below).
Sorry, -1. The foundation should not be building infrastructure
around
an inherently sexist and discriminatory group. [This comment has
nothing
to do with the participants -- it is the way the topic is defined.]
If the discussion list has helped identify specific problems that can
be addressed, or non-discriminatory topics (such as "communication")
upon which meaningful work can be performed regardless of gender,
then that is what you should be making a proposal about.
I tend to agree with Roy, but this might be a good chance to bring
forward a pet peeve of mine: there is more than just sex as an issue
to address when it comes to diversity. The first thing that comes to
my mind is the language barrier: while it's perfectly understandable
that Apache has been an english speaking community, this nevertheless
means we're somewhat leaving a lot of potential outside our fence. I
for one know a lot of people here in Italy who are either non or
under participating due to their poor (or perceived as such)
knowledge of English. Note: I don't have a solution handy, yet it
might be interesting to discuss the issue and see if we can do
something about it.
There are a few other potential discriminations, such as cultural and
logistical issues, not to mention technical problems due to the
increasing amount of bandwith that participation requires. I tend to
think there is some potential for an open discussion and maybe a call
to action to see what we can do to increase diversity as a value we
care about.
--
Gianugo Rabellino
Sourcesense - making sense of Open Source: http://www.sourcesense.com
Blogging at http://www.rabellino.it/blog/
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