OpenHatch newsletter, September 2013
Welcome to OpenHatch newsletter number 14.
Open source came to four different campuses in the last two weeks of September! Around a hundred students from over a dozen schools attended events hosted by IU-Bloomington, Purdue, UI-Chicago, and UMN-Morris. More pictures, and blog posts about the events will be coming soon.
If you want OpenHatch to come to your campus, visit campus.openhatch.org and get in touch.
OpenHatchy but not OpenHatch things around the web
Two bits from an article on a developer panel at LinuxCon:
Sharp got a round of applause when she said she hopes for a more welcoming environment to newcomers. “I’d like to make sure our community is inclusive to all people that want to contribute,” she said. “Getting more diversity, getting more diverse voices in our community is something I’d like to see.” Earlier in the discussion, panel members talked about some programs designed to mentor new developers, including one program specifically for women. They’d like new developers to become frequent contributors instead of just contributing one patch before stopping.
Indeed.
Although kernel development can be intimidating because of how big and complicated the project is, Kroah-Hartman noted that recently a professor in the Czech Republic required a classroom of students to get patches merged into the kernel. A few of them liked the process so much they said they’d keep contributing, he said.
Excellent! If anyone knows of information online about this class, we’ll link to it in a future post. This professor’s method reminds of courses that assign contributing to Wikipedia. Introducing students to contributing to open collaborative projects, code and otherwise, in a structured class setting could be a great way to enable much more diverse participation.
Haskell Symposium program chair report:
First, it’s high time we learned from those people who did not find the Haskell community a welcoming place. If you were excluded, or if you know someone who was, please share your stories. Of course you don’t have any obligation to do anything, but out of the goodness of your hearts, please be our teacher. Please contact me, at ccshan@indiana.edu. I’m getting help from some cultural anthropologists at Indiana University. If you know about anthropology at Indiana, you’ll know that these are professionals who really know how to learn from and respect your individual experiences and perspectives. We’re going to conduct interviews and anonymize them. Then, I’m not sure what we’ll do with the interviews — maybe they’ll become a SIGPLAN Notices article, or a theatrical play, or a shared resource if the interviewees are willing. In any case, the goal is to strengthen our empathy for each other, to understand our different perspectives on our shared community, and to open conversations about this important topic.
The current round of Google Summer of Code & FLOSS Outreach Program for
Women is about to end, and it’s time to start a new cycle of mentored projects in Wikimedia tech.
David Pollak on the Strange Loop conference:
Supporting women in tech is an important goal for me. It wasmost impressed by Alex Miller‘s success in recruiting women presenters (yes, each letter is a separate link to a separate presentation) as well as DevChix.
I graduated law school in 1991 and my class was > 40% women. I’ve seenhow the women from law classes in the early 90s have improved theway lawyering is delivered because more smart, engaged people leads to better results. In tech, we are at the beginning of the processand the way that Alex Miller is enhancing the tech world bymaking women an integral part of Strange Loop deserves my highestpraise and thanks!
CIO.com article Open Source Career Opportunities Continue to Abound:
Whatever industry you’re in, if you’re an open source developer, it seems the market’s wide open. “Open source is everywhere, and we don’t see this market slowing down any time soon,” says Goli.
Not the typical OpenHatchy link, but the implication is clear: diversity in open source communities is not only crucial to the health of those communities, but to the computing industry, economy, and sociey at large.
Also check out links submitted to /r/openhatch, and add your finds!
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