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Let's have another round of applause for Andrew. His presentation was so quick, it was difficult to follow. It's even more difficult to write everything down.
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I love it when I get a question about where the laptop is. That really calms my nerves. I think we all walked away with a laptop. I'm not sure if that was that laptop, but we have a case of a missing laptop.
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Now, after this talk, we have a small break and then I want you all back at half past four for the last talk of the day. Following that, we’ll have a tiny break and then there will be the closing notes.
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As I have already said, the next speaker is Coraline Ada Ehmke. She is a well-known writer, speaker, technologist, and open source advocate with over 20 years of experience. Coraline is also the creator of the Contributor Covenant, which has over 40,000 adoptions. We use it for Amsterdam.rb, and I absolutely love it. It's a key component for every project because it’s incredibly effective.
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She feels that the open source movement has failed us, particularly in terms of the idealism that was present at its beginnings. She will explore how, why, and what we can do to improve it to make it better for everyone.
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It's worth noting that this is not an uplifting talk. I want to apologize in advance. I am angry about what happens to marginalized people when they get involved in open source.
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If you listen to this talk, you may also get angry, and that's fine. We can be angry together and use that energy to bring about change. I need to tell you a little bit about myself to provide some context for what happens next.
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Understand that I am not trying to center myself in this discussion, but rather use my experiences as an example of the problems I will address.
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I call myself a code witch because I write code and I literally practice witchcraft. I've been building web applications since 1993, which means I have 25 years of experience. It feels strange to say that out loud.
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I had love affairs with Perl and Java early in my career, but I discovered Ruby in 2007 and haven’t looked back. I’m best known for creating the Contributor Covenant, the most popular open-source code of conduct in the world.
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As mentioned, it has over 40,000 adoptions, including projects like JRuby, Elixir, Swift, Rails, and all of the open-source projects released by Google, Microsoft, and Apple. I'm on the board of Ruby Together, which aims to fund critical Ruby infrastructure projects, such as RubyGems and Bundler.
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I also created OS4W.org, a platform to help women and non-binary people find mentors and partners to work on open source. I was recognized for my work in promoting diversity in Ruby with the Ruby Hero Award in 2016.
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I share this background to contrast what I do and what many people in the open source community think of me. For instance, I often hear that I obviously don't code. This idea is perpetuated by stereotypes.
00:04:42.690
People say that developers have a harassment problem because they think I'm useless or not a real programmer. Despite being active in open source since the 90s, I’m repeatedly accused of not being a real programmer.
00:05:01.860
This was particularly evident in reaction to an article listing '100 Awesome Women in Open Source.' After seeing my name, I closed the tab because it seemed inappropriate. Coding is not the most important thing that I do, yet my GitHub contribution graph shows that I made about 2,500 commits last year.
00:05:19.110
Despite having 159 public repositories and being the author of 25 Ruby libraries with nearly half a million downloads, that isn't enough for some to deem me a 'real' programmer. Apparently, I’m seen as a liar merely because I am transgender.
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One person in a harassing comment wrote that they didn’t understand why any organization would hire someone pretending to be someone they’re not. They implied that if I would lie about my gender, I would likely lie about other things.
00:06:28.189
As a result of my mission to make open source more inclusive, I have been labeled a social justice warrior. I wear that title as a badge of honor, but it also makes me a frequent target of harassment and nasty transphobic comments, especially on platforms like Reddit.
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I've even been doxxed twice, meaning my personal information, including my home address, was shared publicly. I am targeted partly because of my visibility as a woman in tech, partly because I'm transgender, and because I am not satisfied with the status quo of open source.
00:07:19.110
I believe we can and must be better—not just as programmers, but as human beings. If that makes me a social justice warrior, then so be it. My daughter says the term sounds like I'm a superhero who cares about people.
00:08:03.500
What is the opposite of a social justice warrior? The best I could come up with was 'status quo accountants.' I firmly believe that my experiences of harassment and being targeted are not unique; they are intrinsic to the culture of open source.
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To understand what open source is all about, we need to look at the history of software development and how it has changed over time. Early programmers worked for governments, including those dedicated to encryption projects during World War II. Post-war, computing began to find utility in academia and business.
00:09:07.500
In those days, women dominated the field. This continued into the 60s and 70s when programming was considered women's work. By the mid-80s, however, the advent of personal computers shifted the marketing of computers and games towards men, causing the number of women in computing to decline.
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Companies like IBM began targeting male programmers in their job ads, marking the beginning of the age of the geek. Boys whose parents bought them home computers grew up to be hackers, often working out of their garages to create software and hardware.
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Amateur software creation was common, with a lot of software written in interpreted languages like BASIC, which allowed the distribution of source code rather than just binaries. I remember getting source code from magazines and sharing software with friends at software swap parties.
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However, with the home computer revolution came changes as corporations got involved, shifting software to proprietary models. As a teenager, I even wrote my own disk-editing software to bypass copy protection due to the growing enclaves of corporate software.
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This led to a cat-and-mouse game between proprietary software producers and users, who sought free access. The landscape began to change significantly with Richard Stallman’s response to a frustrating encounter with an HP laser printer in the early 1980s.
00:12:39.250
Frustrated by the printer jamming, Stallman sought to modify the proprietary software to alert users of a jam but was denied access due to nondisclosure agreements. His anger over this incident catalyzed the free software movement.
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In pursuit of free software, Stallman created GNU, an operating system that was Unix-compatible. During the late 90s, as the world adopted the Internet, free software grew in popularity, particularly for web servers.
00:14:02.600
The LAMP stack—Linux, Apache, MySQL, and Perl/PHP—became standard in web development. In 1997, Eric Raymond published a paper called 'The Cathedral and the Bazaar,' which greatly influenced the philosophical framework of the now-named open-source movement.
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Eric Raymond popularized the term 'open source,' although it was originally coined by Christine Peterson. That same year, Netscape Navigator became the first major software package released as open source.
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The Internet solved many distribution problems, as programming evolved into something accessible. HTML source code visibility in browsers introduced many people to programming, thus launching a new generation of developers.
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Today, we inhabit a landscape of social coding sites like GitHub and GitLab, fostering collaboration. However, the egalitarian dream of equal access and involvement is falling short of the expectations of the open-source pioneers.
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Originally, open source emerged as a reaction against the closed-source software produced by corporations. Early adopters adhered to a philosophy of openness and collaboration that was rooted in idealism.
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Four key principles underpinned this idealism: the free exchange of ideas, success through collaboration, shared ownership, and meritocracy. On the surface, these principles seemed reasonable and revolutionary.
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However, these ideas often came from a place of unexamined privilege among university-educated, middle- to upper-class white men. Let’s examine how these ideals fail, starting with the free exchange of ideas.
00:18:46.260
Open source projects signal whether or not individuals from diverse backgrounds are welcome. The network effect limits the reach of idea exchange to peers who often mirror each other's demographic backgrounds.
00:19:27.880
The intended marketplace of ideas theoretically generates greater value through collaboration. However, when the collaborating groups lack diversity, it leads to the emergence of groupthink, which stifles innovation.
00:20:13.840
This concept of groupthink was famously examined by Solomon Asch, who conducted experiments demonstrating how peer influence can lead individuals to conform, even when the correct answer was clear.
00:20:40.450
Groups in online platforms, such as Hacker News, perpetuate this phenomenon by awarding karma for agreement and punishing dissent. This dynamic effectively silences diverse voices.
00:21:22.730
Another principle, shared ownership, states that everyone involved in software creation has equal ownership. Open-source seeks to contrast the hierarchical nature of corporate software production.
00:22:01.300
Although shared ownership suggests distributed decision-making, it rarely translates into practice. Instead, we often see concentrated power, which contradicts open-source principles.
00:22:38.270
Benevolent dictatorships often arise in open-source, where authority consolidates, creating imbalances. This undermines the noble goals of the movement, leading to forms of virtual classism.
00:23:21.170
In the real world, when individuals violate community standards, there are often consequences. The open source community, however, lacks effective mechanisms to address violations of conduct.
00:23:56.440
The idea of loving the art but hating the artist often holds true. For example, many appreciate the work of HP Lovecraft despite his racism, but this should not dictate our collaboration in any endeavor.
00:24:39.080
Open source values cannot coexist in a culture rife with power imbalances. They presume a post-racial, post-sexist world, assuming that the best ideas will emerge in a meritocratic system, which fails to address real-world inequalities.
00:25:22.370
Meritocracy disregards the aspects of identity that differentiate people—social status, gender, race, and religion. We do not have a utopian community free from discrimination; the reality is that power dynamics persist.
00:26:10.020
I would love to discuss diversity in open source, but data is scarce. The only comprehensive measurement concerns women's participation, which is about 20% of the development community but only 2% of open-source developers.
00:26:43.820
About 6% of GitHub users are women, most contributing fewer than 10 times a year. If meritocracy were genuinely equal, it would imply that cisgender heterosexual white men are biologically predisposed to being the best developers.
00:27:20.700
The barriers women and marginalized individuals face in open-source stem from implicit biases that prevent their participation. Identifying merit often translates to: 'You remind me of myself, therefore you have merit.'
00:27:53.880
If meritocracy promises to be the great equalizer, then how can inequality exist? To understand this, we need to delve into the concept of meritocracy itself. The term originated from British sociologist Michael Young, who introduced it satirically.
00:28:36.050
His essay depicts a future society that prioritizes intelligence and creativity over the majority, suggesting that the cost of progress is justified. Young critiques the societal elevation of intellect at the expense of essential human experiences.
00:29:12.490
The modern concept of meritocracy is rooted in utilitarian philosophy, particularly ideas from Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Utilitarianism focuses on maximizing pleasure, valuing overarching happiness while deeming inequalities as acceptable if they don't affect the majority.
00:29:59.079
In this context, the philosophy sacrifices the welfare of the few for the benefit of the many. The utility monster thought experiment illustrates how utilitarianism fails to be egalitarian.
00:30:46.450
By imagining a community where a utility monster derives more value from resources than others, you can see how heavy resource distribution can lead to extreme inequality. It reflects how utilitarian systems strip individuals down to mere consumers.
00:31:36.120
The framework of meritocracy in open source represents this utilitarian mindset. Open-source culture often dismisses soft skills like community building, mentoring, or outreach as non-essential, despite being crucial for fostering inclusivity.
00:32:23.830
This invisible labor, frequently shouldered by women and people of color, leads to an oversight of their contributions. At technical conferences, though diversity has increased thanks to outreach efforts, the human aspect of technology often gets overshadowed.
00:33:08.170
Consequently, talks centering on the human side of technology are often delivered by women and people of color, while the more technical presentations receive more acknowledgment and prestige.
00:33:57.040
To change the narrative, we must acknowledge that caring for our community is as important as technical efforts. To truly create an inclusive open source culture, we need to embrace mutual respect, understanding, and shared values.
00:34:44.950
In closing, we should focus on human connections rather than just the quality of our code. If you're interested in envisioning a post-meritocratic open source world, I invite you to read my post-meritocracy manifesto at postmeritocracy.org.
00:34:57.720
This document aims to redefine our values and set clear expectations for one another as we work towards making open source accessible and equitable for everyone. Thank you.
