EU Funds New FLOSS Survey on Skills, Employment

rishab writes "The EU-funded FLOSSPOLS project is carrying out a survey of developers worldwide. This is a follow-up to the original FLOSS (Free/Libre/Open Source Software) survey in 2002, which was one of the first and most comprehensive surveys of developers - who they are, how they work and why they do it. The new survey aims to provide an update, include new developers, and answer some of the questions that were raised by the first one. In particular, how do developer communities help in learning skills and generating employment, and why is the level of participation by women so low?"

Comments

Re:Women

[chris09876]

Aptitude isn't the right word. There are plenty of smart women out there. I think part of the problem is the isolation that comes with sitting infront of a computer when you're developing. On average, I'd say women are more social than men. ...they're less likely to want to spend hours alone sitting infront of a computer. They'd rather be working on teams where there's lots of social interaction.

Not for them is it?

[Xarius]

why is the level of participation by women so low?

Why is the level of participation of men in, say, nursery school(kindergarten for the Americans), so low?

Men are good at certain things, Women are good at certain things. Regardless of "Equal Oppurtunities" etc. Men and Women are fundamentally different, see that's why there are different words for them. :P

Re:Not for them is it?

[JesusCigarettes]

Men are good at certain things, Women are good at certain things. Regardless of "Equal Oppurtunities" etc. Men and Women are fundamentally different, see that's why there are different words for them. :P

Come now. Let's not get caught up in "Well, this is just the way things are, and there's no reason to change" nonsense. According to your argument, the lack of women doctors and CEOs in the 1950s was because men and women are 'inherently different', right? Except that there actually was systematic oppression of women in place to prevent them from succeeding in high-paying professions.

It may be true that, in general, men are more likely than women to write software. That doesn't mean that the way things are *now* is a perfect representation of how likely women are compared to men. When you grow up believing that only nerdy, quirky women are involved in math and science (as they are often portrayed in movies, etc.) and you want to fit in, you'll avoid those fields even if you really *would* be good at math or science. Likewise, as a male growing up seeing stereotypes of male hairdressers as gay, it's easy to write off being a hairdresser to avoid being typecast as gay.

Are men and women different? Sure. Men have penises and testicles, and women have vaginas. They're *generally* hormonally different, and *generally* have tendencies toward certain things. That doesn't mean it's useless to examine what factors cause those tendencies, or that it's a good thing that we have self-reinforcing gender stereotypes. Examine behavior rationally - fuck this homebrew "common sense" unscientific bullshit.

Re:Not for them is it?

[EnronHaliburton2004]

The users of the OSTG sites are 97% male. Slashdot demographics are probably very similar.

With such an overwhelmingly male audience, you're not going to get a serious discussion on gender equity here unfortunately.

It's a bit of an echo chamber in here.

Re:Not for them is it?

[Monkelectric]

Are men and women different? Sure. Men have penises and testicles, and women have vaginas. They're *generally* hormonally different, and *generally* have tendencies toward certain things. That doesn't mean it's useless to examine what factors cause those tendencies, or that it's a good thing that we have self-reinforcing gender stereotypes. Examine behavior rationally - fuck this homebrew "common sense" unscientific bullshit.

And this is where you shoot yourself in the foot. Those same hormones that cause sex differentiation cause structural differences in the brain as well. Now im not saying women cant be programmers -- ive met some damn good ones -- but they are less predisposed to technical work -- and pretending something else is true because you want it to be is intellectually dishonest.

Re:Not for them is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Social factors are valid consideration, such can not be disputed by anyone; however, the idea that societal impositions may even aspire to play a role even approaching that of physical reality (chemical and structural differences aiding certain types of thought are the central factors that guide individual's development of aptitudes-especially with regard to the exceptions of ignorant gender-based roles) is pure foolishness.

Re:Not for them is it?

[ScrappyTheObscure]

Being a woman and a programmer I have paid a fair amount of attention to the question of why I'm so rare in the field.

I really believe that the US's answers to this question are all youth-culture socially ingrained. The educational system doesn't have any way of providing anything like the roll models or mentoring or enough ways of reaching any really smart kid with aptitude who is socialized out of much of anything.

That's a gender-neutral way of saying US youth culture would have to change in order to alter this here. Enough other limiting factors have been removed, I think that's the last one and the biggest.

I have Indian coworkers who tell me that when they went to university, 1/3 of the slots in the science programs were reserved for women, 2/3 for men. The women, in their experience, may not look like they're going to be dominant, but are usually contenders for the very best grades.

I take that as (admittedly anecdotal) evidence that a much larger # of women could participate in computing and succeed if only they were not receiving some sort of short circuit early that kills interest.

Anyhow, ok, I'll grant women are different from men, but that doesn't mean the industry doesn't need to find a way to draw them in. We're just as smart as men and different is GOOD.

Or when was the last time you worked in a seriously multicultural office? Different world views and thought patterns make for constructive and healthy workplaces.

Re:Not for them is it?

[EnronHaliburton2004]

The Barbie is just one example.

You cannot ignore the social factors behind a child's mental development. I'm certain that you played with toys when you were a kid, and that those toys have had been influential in your development as a person.

Re:Not for them is it?

[GrouchoMarx]

That isn't likely to happen for quite a while. Gender discrimination is complex, different discriminations interact with each other, things such as "peer-backed" discrimination tend to be ignored and there are plenty of advocates of all sorts of discrimination...

True, it's not easy. And many may find it hard to cope with this, but it's not a problem that can be handled on an institutional level. You have to first address the problem yourself, within yourself. When YOU are judging a person not on the basis of their gender (or color of their skin, or sexual preference, or whatever) but on the quality of their character and their demonstrated abilities, then you start demanding the same from those around you. If that means calling someone on it who doesn't want to be called on it, that's their problem. Eventually some will rise to your level, and become allies.

No, we won't end up with a 50/50 split in the end, probably on anything. But if everyone has taken the strength to purge themselves of of unfair bias (and maintains only fair bias, such as "if you can't do the work, I won't hire you", which is perfectly legitimate), then we'll all be healthier for it and the ratio will be wherever it "belongs".

The solution to problems in society is honorable people. Honorable people are made honorable by their own actions, not by institutions.

45 questions. ... eek!

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Well, I started to take the survey... I was at question 11 when I realized that there are 45 questions to answer ... holy shit. Not sure I have time to answer all of these ...

Re:Women

[basilpronoun]

The proportion of men to women on the team which writes the highly reliable software for the space shuttle is roughly 50/50. http://www.fastcompany.com/online/06/writestuff.ht ml
Results count for more than studies.

So long as we don't try to even things out

[EmbeddedJanitor]

I'm completely against gender discrimination.

I am also completely against changinf science or engineering to give it more "girl appeal". Doing so will stop science/engineering being what it is.The worst possible scenario is some sort of state intervention that applies quotas (eg. 40% of your proggrammers gotta be female to get a tax cut).

Analogy: 90%+ of cosmetics are bought by females for their own use.. Imagine if the state said that they had to sell at least 40% of their cosmetics to men. It would destroy the cosmetic industry.

Open Source has always been about a level playing field - let's keep it that way.

Re:Women

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, how many of those poisitions were required to be filled by minories to win the NASA contract?