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+Back in mid-February, I was invited to participate in a review of
+<a href="http://www.flosspols.org/">EU government policy support research</a> 
+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 
+<a href="http://www.flosspols.org/deliverables/FLOSSPOLS-D16-Gender_Integrated_Report_of_Findings.pdf">integrated report of findings</a>
+and 
+<a href="http://www.flosspols.org/deliverables/FLOSSPOLS-D17-Gender_Policy_Recommendations.pdf">recommendations</a> 
+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 
+<a href="http://debconf6.debconf.org/">Debian developer's conference</a>
+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]]