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+Back in mid-February, I was invited to participate in a review of
+EU government policy support research
+on gender issues in Free Software communities at the University of
+Cambridge. The meeting was fascinating to me not
+only because of my level of interest in
+the content, but also because the reviewers were a wonderfully diverse group
+of genuinely interesting people. I also must admit that being a
+guest of Kings College for two nights
+was quite an experience in and of itself...
+
+As someone who has been a strong proponent of the idea that approaches and
+technologies adopted by Free Software developers are something other
+communities might want to borrow from or emulate, I found the results of this
+research both disturbing and enlightening. The disturbance centers around
+just how strongly male-biased our current behaviors seem to be in practice,
+particularly in the Debian project. My moment of enlightenment was the
+realization that many of the ideas we
+discussed about how to encourage and enable more female participation in our
+communities could simultaneously make our projects more appealing and rewarding
+to all of our contributors!
+
+I've talked to various people about this research in my travels since the
+meeting in February, and many have followed up asking for pointers to
+the findings. I was pleased to learn this morning that the
+integrated report of findings
+and
+recommendations
+from this work are finally available online.
+
+I hope at least some of you will read this report, and will then be as
+interested as I am in looking for ways to change the status quo. Perhaps a
+BOF at the upcoming
+Debian developer's conference
+to discuss these results and brainstorm specific actions we can take in
+the Debian project would be a good place to start? I expect to arrive
+late on the 15th, and must depart early on the morning of the 21st...
+
+[[!tag tags/debian]]