OStatic

I've been watching the latest kerfuffle about sexism in the FOSS community with a combination of concern and dismay. Concern, because it's an issue I care deeply about and dismay because both sides are so busy screaming at each other, no one is stopping to listen. Instead of bickering, where are the actionable steps people can take to educate each other about how to get along in a community where everyone's end goal -- the advancement of free software -- is ultimately the same?

When it comes to getting a good turnout at a FOSS event, half the battle is getting yourself noticed above behemoth get-togethers like OSCON and SCALE. Sponsors like O'Reilly and IBM have little trouble getting press about their upcoming events but LUGs and regional conferences have a tougher time.

The team at the Peer-Directed Projects Center (best known for its work running the freenode IRC network) feels your pain. They've launched a new site called fossevents.org to help smaller events keep from getting lost in the din, and prevent I-wish-I'd-known-about-this-sooner syndrome in community members who find out about local conferences a little too late to attend.

Non-profit research group Institute for the Future has partnered with Boing Boing and Sun Microsystems to create an online community of young inventors who want to work with open source technology. To sweeten the interest in becoming a part of The Digital Open, community organizers are holding a contest for kids 17 and under to submit their own open source projects for a chance to win a laptop, Flip camera, or one of several other prizes.

FOSSBazaar recently highlighted Evangelia Berdou's doctoral thesis on the differences between the contributions of paid open source developers and volunteer contributors.

Berdou examined parallels and disconnects between paid and volunteer contributors in the GNOME and KDE projects, using earlier incidents of such events (such as the Gstreamer/Fluendo SL summit). The hypotheses and analysis she presents are thought-provoking.

A few years ago I stumbled upon the efforts of the Victoria Linux Users Group. They are an active, involved group, but not particularly unlike any other LUG. I was pointed in the direction of their Linux in Victoria brochure.

Yes, its date of publication was 1997. What makes this brochure different is that it is open. Perhaps this is less impressive in light of the advent of wikis, but the purpose and intent of the brochure is still remarkable, and well worth expanding upon.

This model could easily extend beyond brochures, and benefit more of the FOSS community than the local LUGs.