Most of the points in my draft were about inclusion, making sure
everyone feels welcome. This is directly about diversity as a benefit in
its own right.
On 5/13/2019 9:41 PM, Kenneth Knowles wrote:
I alluded to this elsewhere, but I would welcome feedback on whether this
perspective is relevant. It hinges on whether the ASF's mission is to
provide software *that is a public good* in the technical economics sense
(non-excludable non-rivalrous) or software *for the public good* (aka the
benefit of the public). The ASL seems oriented towards the former, while
the foundation has a lot more of the latter than I realized 5 years ago. If
the latter carries weight, there's this...
A: The mission of the ASF is to provide software for the public good. The
best way to ensure something is for the public good is to include a diverse
sample of the public in its development and direction. Those who are not
represented in development of Apache projects are probably less well-served
by those projects. At best, we just don't know. To assume otherwise is
paternalistic [1]. So increased diversity and inclusion automatically
advances the foundation's mission, whether or not you know or care about
the race, ethnicity, gender, age, weight, or any other personal
characteristics of other contributors.
Kenn
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternalism
*From: *Patricia Shanahan <p...@acm.org>
*Date: *Mon, May 13, 2019 at 1:14 PM
*To: * <diversity@apache.org>
The first and most important question is something along the lines of:
--------------------------------------------------------------
Q: Apache does everything by e-mail. I do not know or care about the
race, ethnicity, gender, age, weight, or any other personal
characteristics of other contributors. Why are diversity and inclusion
relevant issues for Apache?
--------------------------------------------------------------
Here are some elements that I think should be covered in the answer. At
this point, I am going for the big picture. Please suggest improvements
and fix errors.
--------------------------------------------------------------
1. Subconscious bias: You know the name the contributor uses. In
addition, you may know their time zone and, from how quotes are
introduced, the language in which they do most of their e-mail interaction.
Research indicates that merely changing the name on a resume can affect
the probability of a call back. Although the results could in theory be
explained by deliberate racism and sexism, they seem more likely to be
due to subconscious bias.
2. It is not all e-mail: Apache contributors meet at open source
conferences, specialty technical conferences, and local gatherings. Not
being able to participate without fearing discrimination would itself be
discouraging.
3. Unintentional insult through stereotypes: This is a bigger risk in
e-mail than in face-to-face interactions.
I had someone on a mailing list use "try to explain X to someone's
aunt", where X was a difficult technical point, as an example of
futility. It invoked a stereotype of older women as lacking computer
science comprehension. As it happens, I already had two adult nephews
when I got my PhD in computer science. The writer would probably not
have said what they did in a live conversation including a grey-haired
woman.
4. Misuse of pronouns: If you know someone's preferred pronouns you know
something about their gender, and subconscious gender discrimination
becomes possible. If you don't, you may be making them cringe every time
you refer to them in an e-mail.
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