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

For some odd reason..

[SocialEngineer]

For some odd reason I read "FLOSSPOLS" as "FLOSS PLS". Subliminal messages perhaps?

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?

[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?

[deacent]

As a woman who codes and went to an engineering university, I can testify that to that there are social factors that do dissuade girls and young women from going into technical fields. For one thing, there are few scientifically-inclined female role models. I don't know about you, but when I think of a female scientist stereotype, I have this vision of a cold, austere looking woman, which doesn't even remotely describe me or any of my female peers.

While growing up, I had adults and peers alike (not all of them, of course) treat me as if I'm some sort of freak for showing an interest in computers. Others would treat me like I was some sort of idiot who was incapable of doing the assigned work myself. When you're trying to fit in, it's easier to find a new interest than to endure those attitudes. It took several tries with my guidance councelor to get her to put together my records to submit to the college I went to because she kept questioning if I really wanted to do this. Not exactly a morale booster.

When I got to college, the male to female ratio was 6 : 1. Not only was there the minority of guys who hit on every girl they came into contact with (a few strayed over into sexual harassment), but there were very few girls who could sympathize with you.

If you are assertive, you're labeled a bitch. When you go for jobs, there are people who think, "Well, she's going to want to start a family soon, so I'd better not go with her; she's going to be undependable", without having any evidence of her dependability.

No, can't see why any young woman would have a problem going into a science field with those conditions. Any attempt to make science seem "girl-friendly" is doomed as long as the situtations that I mention are common enough. It's a cheap marketing ploy at best.

Having said all of that, I am a strong believer of matching the person to the position. I don't care if your advantage comes from your natural talent, physical build, education, experience, personality, etc. but, it had better be an honest match. You lose a lot when you confuse your assumptions with reality.

Re:Women

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the aptitude to work long hours for nothing so that corporations can get their software for free? Probably not, women aren't that stupid.

Hmmm

[Neil Blender]

Do other countries think it's funny to put [United States] in alphabetical order in a country drop down list instead of index 1 where it belongs no matter what?

Re:Hmmm

[rokzy]

yes we think it's hilarious. we often screen videos of dumb Americans bouncing on the down arrow key at the weekly meetings of the "No USAians" club.

so far none of them have realised you can press the 'U' key.

the funniest ones are where they get all the way to countries beginning with the letter 'H', stopping to read and think about each one, before finally realising it's alphabetical and they can just scroll until countries beginning with 'U' appear.

when you guys finally figure out our plot, we'll start putting the USA in random places.

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.

Re:women are sick...

[Gzip Christ]

There are only so many times you can hear a guy ask, "Is your body released under GNU/GPL?"

Hey, we just want to know which girls are easy to fork.

Why Fewer Women

[matria]

As a grandmother, who's been pretty much on my own for learning how to program, and wasn't allowed to have a computer "to waste time and money on" until my husband decided that HE could use one, I can tell you immediately why there are fewer women in FOSS development.

Most FOSS projects start as an after-work (or school), spare-time project. Most women work, and even working women are expected to handle housework, shopping, and child care after work. Where is the spare time left for anything else?