The Role of a Nonprofit In Open Source Development

jrepin writes KDE is among the biggest open source projects which continues to innovate and evolve with the changing times. Often we have seen this particular community create technologies ahead of its time which were later adopted by other projects. The Linux Foundation talked to Lydia Pintscher, the president of the KDE e.V., the nonprofit organization that oversees the legal and financial aspects of the KDE project, to understand the relationship between the community and the organization. We also discussed the challenge of recruiting more women to open source projects and women in the KDE community.

Comments

Why

[_Sharp'r_]

We also discussed the challenge of recruiting more women to open source projects and women in the KDE community.

Why?

How about asking about the challenges of recruiting more GUI designers, or more programmers, or more QA testers, or more of some group KDE specifically needs more of. Why ask about women?

It's almost like there's some sort of additional agenda beyond just interviewing the KDE folks....

Re:Why

[DoofusOfDeath]

It's almost like there's some sort of additional agenda beyond just interviewing the KDE folks....

Are you serious??? Slashdot clearly is not interested in posting stories about getting more women into computing.

I've been begging them for years to run more stories like that, but the editors always tell me that they just don't generate enough click traffic.

Re:Why

[AmiMoJo]

Because the person being interviewed has worked to attract more women to open source and KDE, with some positive results. Others may wish to learn from her experiences and considered opinion.

Re:Why

[BarbaraHudson]

It's the same mentality that we see at the Oscars - men are asked all sorts of questions, women are asked about their dresses.

FTFA:

We have often seen such incidents which require a very thick skin to survive. As a journalist I have grown a thick skin, but not everyone wants that. We risk losing talented people because of the social nature of some communities. And that's where community members can make a huge difference. One bad apple should not rot the entire community.

Pintscher says, "When you see someone being a jerk, say something because this is not just about the two people directly involved - it is also about everyone else who is watching that conversation and making up their mind about contributing to the project or not. There are so many little things you can do that make things better overall."

She then recalls an incident from her past where someone's little act made a huge difference to her. "The most enlightening moment for me was years ago at a conference: I was standing with a group of guys and another guy joined. Someone introduced everyone. Everyone except me. I am sure they didn't mean any harm, but in a movement that so heavily relies on personal connections to get anything done this is a huge bummer. Someone else then quickly introduced me as well and all was good. You can be that someone. These little things make a huge difference."

So much for not having a thick skin. Maybe you weren't introduced because they thought you already knew the person? Or they didn't know your name and didn't want to say "and here's whats-her-name." People should wear name tags at such events because odds are if you're meeting 50 people, you've forgotten 45 of their names within seconds of being introduced.

"Standing up" is confrontational, and assumes offense where, as in this case, she admits no offense was even intended. The way to deal with this is particular case was to just introduce yourself.

Now, in the case of blatant, intentional moronic behavior, that's a different story. But this wasn't the case here, and to use it as an example was poor judgment.

There are huge problems with sexism in tech, but there are also more than enough blatant examples that we don't need to look for one that trivializes the whole issue.

Re:Why

[pr0fessor]

I think the point she was getting at wasn't that she was forgotten but that someone went out of their way to make sure she was included.

Re:Why

[BarbaraHudson]

Nevertheless, for someone who claimed to have a thick skin, she was remarkably thin-skinned over something she said herself was not intentional. It was a very poor example, and trivializes the real problems.

Re:Why

[pr0fessor]

Poor example yes, but I think it was more of a plug to promote her community than anything else. I'm not disagreeing I just think there was a different motive behind the story, It was feel good message.

Re:Why

[BarbaraHudson]

I Have to agree. It was a real puff piece, short on hard questions.

Re:Why

[duck_rifted]

That's not the only issue. The other issue is that it doesn't actually get women interested in computer science. Nobody is going to decide, "Oh, I better learn this highly technical, challenging skill because Go Team Genitalia Like Mine!" For people to learn challenging skills requires that those skills have a practical application that matters to them, and if income were enough then we wouldn't be having this conversation.

How about a social website that is a blank slate with a highly accessible API that allows people to basically create their own kind of site on their profile? Give it simple syntax and semantics, like Javascript, and make it easily extensible so that people can customize their own pages for talking about themselves and their lives. Then, just make sure that sleaze balls like the robots and sociopaths running Facebook can't touch it.

How about that? An obvious application for the Java replacement tech firms wish they had and a way for them to compete with Facebook at the same time as motivating females to learn to program for a practical task that has already been proven to reach their demographic. It's almost like if we stop accusing each other of sexism and have a single constructive thought about the actual task of getting more women interested in computer science, then we have at least one thought that's actually on topic. Who'd have thunk it?

Re:Why

[DoofusOfDeath]

Are YOU serious?

No. Whooosh!!! :)

Re:Why

[duck_rifted]

Absolutely whoosh! Sorry; I've just gotten annoyed because these people who are just using this topic as an excuse to lash out at each other are making the actual topic of how to get more women interested in computer science totally unapproachable. Instead of, "What do you think, everyone, how do we work together to do this hard thing?" It's, "OMG! We have to figure out how to do this hard thing together, but nobody is allowed to talk about it and all it really means is that if I mention it, I'm automatically right about everything I say."

Authors who have to fall back on that kind of crutch should just stop writing, and people who think they'll solve complicated social problems by making everybody afraid to mention them are the reason those problems exist in the first place. The best strategy a sexist person can employ today is to pretend to hate sexist people, and people are apparently actually so stupid and impulsive that the majority are falling for it.

End. Of. Rant. I'm sorry. I just had to get that out because *not* saying it has been making this topic fester in my brain to the point that it's actually starting to piss me off.

Re:Why

[DoofusOfDeath]

No worries. An occasional good rant gets the carbon buildup out of your cylinders.

Re:Why

[duck_rifted]

And that can be a vital process. I have a bad habit of tuning out everything I feel to focus on programming until those cylinders are about ready to lock up. It feels great to take a break and get it out once in a while. Thanks for understanding! :)

Re:Why

[DoofusOfDeath]

No problem. I've listened to a lot of Car Talk episodes, and Tommy (RIP) gave me a good appreciation for a proper rant.

Re:Why

[CAPSLOCK2000]

Why ask about women?

Because KDE was one of the first free software projects to focus on involving more women. They KDE Women mailinglist archive goes back to 1998. Given the recent attention for that subject it seems like a good idea to ask KDE about their experience.

Re:Why

[duck_rifted]

I like how this was modded "Troll", just like any time I mention some mistakes the GOP is making. If you can't form a rational argument, just slander people you disagree with, right?

Re:Why Gnome?

[invictusvoyd]

I'd say why KDE or Gnome. People who are not comfortable with xfce or fluxbox or icewm should switch to windows .

What about the Pima Indians?

[NotDrWho]

Did you know that KDE doesn't have a *SINGLE* Pima Indian developer? Not *ONE*! What is being done to attract more Pima Indians to the KDE development community? And why hasn't KDE made ANY efforts to reach out to the Pima Indian community to encourage young Pima Indians to become KDE developers?

Re:What about the Pima Indians?

[amalcolm]

I doubt you've ever seen a real tit except your mother's, loser

Re:Why Gnome?

[DoofusOfDeath]

I've really been enjoying Cinnamon. I had been using Gnome 2. Then Ubuntu went off the rails with Gnome 3 and Unity. I've found KDE 3+ to be a little odd for me, in terms of look and feel. Things like Fluxbox and Icewm seemed a bit spare for my liking. Cinnamon was just what I was looking for.

Re:only women with

[amalcolm]

I doubt you've ever seen a real pair or tits except your mother's, loser

Re:What if we worry about

[serviscope_minor]

How about if we worry more what's between people's ears and not so much about what's between their legs?

Um that's entirely the point. The trouble is that the rest of the world does, in fact, seem to care more about genetalia than anything else.

and I'm sure we need to start throwing some bucks at diversity efforts for the sexes in these industries

Go ahead. Or do you actually mean that other people should do the legwork while you whine on the internet?

Re:Why Gnome?

[ArhcAngel]

But Cinnamon isn't free...at least she wasn't the last time I talked to her.

Re:Why Gnome?

[Kjella]

So why main distribs mainly offer Gnome as a first gui?

Mainly the history of Qt I think. Up until 2009 it was a dual GPL/commercial license until it went LGPL. That meant that other companies felt Trolltech/Nokia would have too much control over proprietary GUI application development. Now that's a while ago, but long enough that both Red Hat and Canonical had already picked Gnome. And once you do it's natural that the pro-Gnome developers gather there and the rest leave, so the internal resistance to switch is too great. Maybe if someone started a fresh distro and made KDE "trendy" since openSUSE doesn't seem to have the right appeal, but I don't see who'd do that today. I think everybody's waiting for Google to get their act together and swoop in with an Android/Chromebook solution that really hurts Microsoft/Apple on the desktop, unless you think you can upstage Google and get there first I wouldn't invest in a Linux distro today.

Re:Why Gnome?

[marcosdumay]

No idea at all.

I'm calling it Red-Hattitis, expecting it to be a kind of mental disorder. But if somebody does really know what's the cause, I'l love to hear.

Re:Why Gnome?

[Rob Y.]

Mint's KDE flavor is very nice already. The only problem with KDE these days is it's original 'too much configurability' issue. Yes, it may be hard to believe, but KDE has actually proven that there can be too much configurabilitty (or at least too much to present routinely to casual users).

People complain about certain aspects of KDE - especially the search indexer, but distros don't have to include it all.

Re:Why Gnome?

[mister_playboy]

Agreed... the best Linux desktop experience is at Xfce.

As long as you have no need for tear-free video playback, anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I've got XFCE on one my own machines. But still having this sort of show-stopper issue in 2015, on open source Intel graphics no less, is embarrassing to Linux.