what are we doing today, brain?

So today (March the 8th) is International Womens Day, so the Sydney Linuxchix decided to have a hackfest/movie night. It was a fun event with about a dozen women popping in throughout the day, a few short talks about pet projects, some hacking (when our internet wasn’t fluctuating) and then dinner and Office Space, just for a laugh It was a fun and relaxed day.

I was really moved by Kevin Rudd’s speech this morning, where the Australian Government finally acknowledged the trauma and loss of Indigenous peoples in Australia through the misguided and destructive actions of the Australian Government for most of the 20th Century. This was done with a strong apology and commitment to making life better for Indigenous Australians through a bipartisan effort to bring about equal access to opportunities, better health, better education and other work to give Indigenous peoples the same opportunities and quality of life as other Australians.

It also made me feel for the first time in a long time that Australian politics can indeed be both inspiring and practical. It gave me a lot of hope for what is to come and to do my part in helping bring about a strong and united Australia. I hope that the lessons that we see from the Open Source community, were people can overcome gender, political, cultural, religious and all other divides to work together productively, can be brought to the broader Australian community.

Recently Russell Coker blogged about “an obstacle for women in the IT industry”, where the obstacle in question is apparently how women sometimes respond to men like they are trying to pick them up. On one hand there is certainly a point to be made about people (men and women) who assume the worst when someone is communicating with them and then close down communications. However, I think Russell used really bad examples which end up making his post pretty upsetting for a lot of women, and pretty dumb for general readers. My synopsis of the unfortunate points is below to help Russell and others avoid such divisive writing and hopefully better understand the issues:

• Saying that “well according to Pia’s research, statistically less than 45% of linux.conf.au attendees are likely to be trying to pick up” doesn’t make it a non-issue. This is unfortunately saying “so only 200-300 people might try a come-on line”. Yeah, that really makes women want to attend linux.conf.au! For the record I’ve never had someone try a come-on line with me at linux.conf.au. I’m sure it happens but there are by far more awesome people at linux.conf.au than not and I would hate to think that comments like this turn women off coming to linux.conf.au and miss out on such a fantastic experience!
• Citing a couple of examples doesn’t mean you’ve proven something conclusively - Russell basically says “this Lenovo guy found that a woman was uncomfortable when approached in an airport” and “well I had an experience with a woman at a FOSS conferences and they told me they had a boyfriend when I was just trying to talk!”. He seems to think this conclusively means all women are doing this to themselves in the IT sector. It is worth mentioning most people wouldn’t feel comfortable if a salesperson came up to them in an airport unsolicited, the Lenovo guys post only mentioned _one_ incident of this which wasn’t even the point of his post, and as Matthew Garrett points out in Russell’s comments, Russell has an overly familiar approach even to strangers, which I can imagine would make a person feel a bit uncomfortable, and if some women decide to say they have a boyfriend (or girlfriend) to preempt the behaviour, then that isn’t exactly unexpected. Actually, I’m not sure why this would be offensive anyway. They’ve made clear what this isn’t to avoid any confusion, and now you can get on with discussion.
• On this last point, there are unfortunately still (and will always likely be) jerks who do try to come on to other people without any invitation or interest (male and female) and as there are more men than women in many IT and FOSS communities, the statistical probability of a woman having already had this annoying and sometimes horrible experience is much higher than a guy, so isn’t it far better if the person you are talking to gets this possibility out of the way if for any reason she/he feels concerned about it? Don’t be so egotistical to think “but I wasn’t!” because how would she/he know and what experiences have led them to be concerned. Isn’t this a great reason to say “wow it is sad that some women in our community feel uncomfortable about this, what can I/our community do about it?”, rather than saying “I’ve got it! Women just need to stop assuming the worst!”.
• The Lenovo guys post didn’t talk about this issue at all, in fact most of the examples he gave weren’t gender specific, so assuming “gifts of free hardware and advice on technical issues related to computers were provided only to men because the reaction of women was bad enough that it wasn’t worth the effort!” is completely bogus.
• The majority of experts in the IT industry are male in Australia, but not all countries. In countries where IT isn’t as gender associated as it is here there are a lot less problems.
• Women, like men, come in all different types. We can be shy, outgoing, confident, confused, strong, crass, polite, etc, etc. Please don’t assume that any experience with one woman speaks for all of us. That goes to everyone. If a person of any category does X, it doesn’t mean that category all do X.

Ultimately Russell says this is a problem that needs to be improved. I think that the less contentious point about people (including women) trying to not assume bad intentions when talking to new people is a good point. It is true that some women miss out on opportunities to learn because either they assume a male is approaching them inappropriately, or because someone is approaching them inappropriately. Some women miss out on opportunities to learn for a plethora of reasons from different communication styles, to feeling uncomfortable to ask a question (from what I’ve seen some women can be turned off IT and FOSS from only one or two sexist or sleazy people if the behaviour goes unchecked). Wouldn’t it be great to focus on how we can ensure our community is a comfortable place for all people so they don’t miss out on opportunities to learn and contribute? My suggestions would be:

• Be understanding - people go through a lot of different experiences. Try to understand it from their perspective and it’ll help you approach them appropriately. This goes for everyone!
• Be polite - flaming someone is never appropriate. It is never successful or constructive either. Think about ways to communicate to achieve what you want without making the environment ineffective to work in.
• Be respectful and inclusive - some women feel quite isolated at geek conferences because they are treated differently. We are all part of one big community, so just treat everyone respectfully, and be welcoming. A girl geek is no less interested in technology as a guy geek, so be inclusive.
• Encourage positive behaviour - encourage newcomers to your community to do the right thing by others in the community. For example, often a code of conduct can help keep things relatively positive and effective. Particularly remember that silence is default acceptance of behaviour. Letting sexist or racist jokes slide on IRC or mailing lists turn people off, effectively and silently.
• When it comes to women in particular, try to remember some women in our community have been through a lot, often just for being female and being in IT. Some of us have had abuse, an assumption that we’re stupid, idiotic and unsolicited sexual advances, frustrating assumptions (”you’re too pretty to use mutt”), death threats and a whole lot more. If you feel so miffed about being told a woman has a partner, try to think about what she may have been through to get this response.

I am constantly made aware that I am a women in IT. Not just an IT professional, not just a FOSS advocate, but a woman and many women in IT and FOSS feel that constant assertion of our gender placed upon us when most of us just want to get on with working, hacking and enjoying our chosen careers and tech lifestyle. I love the FOSS community and the fact that I can go anywhere in the world and talk with people that have a common vision of freedom, opportunity and openness, and I firmly believe we have a platform in FOSS for creating a better world through those shared ideals. A world where anyone can achieve their maximum potential through their own efforts, and are not limited by their gender, religion, culture, disability or any other factor. If the question is “what needs to be improved?”, then look at your own communities, codes of behaviour, personal behaviour, and ask yourself how you can act better to help our community be a great and comfortable place for everyone.

Over the coming week I’ll be making up for lost blog time, the last week at linux.conf.au was awesome!! The Melbourne team did a great job and I had a great time! Lots was done and said and more on that soon, however to start, Paul Wayper wrote some funny limericks I just had to blog

That wonderful man Andrew Tridgell
Over SaMBa keeps permanent vigil.
SMB, it is said,
He decodes in his head,
And CIFS 2 will some day bear his sigil.

The great LGuest programmer Rusty,
Is virtually never seen dusty.
He eats 16K pages,
And has done so for ages,
Yet his moustache is clean and not crusty.

That marvellous girl Pia Waugh
Is certainly hard to ignore.
With her leet ninja moves,
Open Source just improves -
All Linux Australians show awe!

Yay!

Many people talk about how Microsoft need to make their products more interoperable through using Open Standards and publishing their own protocols and standards. It was announced in December that Microsoft have licensed a large proportion of their protocol documentation to the SAMBA team, which effectively means in the coming years we will be able to interface with and replace annoying vendor lock-in traps like Sharepoint and Exchange. This is excellent news, and although my blogpost is a little late, I wanted to extend a huge thanks and congratulations to Andrew Tridgell and the SAMBA team on this excellent outcome!

All the details with links and such are on the SAMBA website here. If you are involved in a FOSS project that could benefit from this, you should chat to the SAMBA team.

For me anyway I have always loved maps, but never really got around to digital mapping much. The Census has given me a perfect opportunity to play as we wanted to map where the Open Source industry and community is roughly located (by suburb for privacy reasons) and for comparison throughout Australia. I’ve had a lot of fun!

The first major challenge was figuring out how to represent the data I had (suburbs, postcodes, etc) into useful data. KML, which is a markup language for this kind of stuff seemed to be the answer along with Googlemaps, at least to start. I found a great little tag called “address” that seemed to make my life easy, until I figured out after an hour or two that it only works in GoogleEarth, not GoogleMaps. Ah well! So now I had to figure out how to change addresses to latitude/longitude information. Enter Batch Geo Code! This website is so simple but so great. You input data and it feeds you back longitude/latitude info, which I could then script into a KML file and voila! A beautiful GoogleMap with all the suburbs represented!

I can’t post the maps yet, but when the Census is released in late February there will be a lot of great information like this Also, a bit of it will be chatted about at linux.conf.au.

The Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) released a simple two page synopsis of their investigation into the use of FOSS in Federal Government agencies recently. They also have several interesting papers about FOSS on their Open Source software page. Some snippets include:

86% of agencies have a positive view of OSS and expect its usage to increase over the next 5 years

Agencies understand that by adopting OSS standards and solutions they could protect their investment in ICT systems, data and software

Agencies indicated their desire to be both vendor and format independent, with the high level of flexibility available to them by using OSS leading to an environment of innovation and transparency

And then the kicker:

OSS vendor support is perceived as problematic and was indicated as the biggest challenge facing OSS adoption by respondents.

Hopefully the soon to be released Census will help overcome the biggest challenge facing FOSS adoption in Government, and then 2008 will be a serious power year for FOSS in Australia The report is due out in late February, and some teasers will be presented at linux.conf.au.

I just found this article which is a few weeks old which has given me more actual information about Hicks than all of the Australian media combined over the last 5 years. Looks like we occasionally have to look international to get local coverage

After basically allowing Hicks to remain in Guantánamo for five years without any significant protest, the former prime minister, John Howard, came under domestic political pressure to secure his release, or at least a trial, and he made what was tantamount to such a demand on Vice President Dick Cheney when Cheney was in Australia in February. Formal charges and the plea bargain quickly followed.

It is interesting to already see Howard being reporting in this way.

Andrew Hendry from Computerworld has done a really interesting article covering the OOXML symposium at the UNSW Cyberlaw Centre in December that I helped coordinate. It is a really interesting piece and covering some of the arguments against OOXML. He’ll apparently be doing an article after this one covering the arguments for OOXML.

Microsoft’s OOXML: The No vote
The first of a two-part series examining the arguments for and against the standardisation of Microsoft’s Office Open XML format.

I have decided to not run for the Linux Australia committee again for 2008, and to instead live as a normal community member in the Australian FOSS community. I’m hoping this will give me some context as to the good and bad of Linux Australia, and help me understand our community better, how people/organisations interface with LA, and what a national body can do for our community as our needs and society changes. Alongside this goal is also the fact that I have become relatively burnt out and need a break. I wasn’t nearly as active on the LA committee in 2007 as I wanted to be, and I also have two specific community-centric projects I’m helping with for 2008 that will be taking a lot of my time (specifically Software Freedom International of which I am still President, and a project yet to be announced).

With this in mind I thought I would briefly chronicle my time with LA for histories’ sake. I also want to lay the groundwork for what I believe makes a good candidate for the LA committee based on my experience and observations.

In the beginning…
When I came across LA only about 9 months prior to linux.conf.au 2003 (Perth) I found an organisation with a total of 5 members (who were also the committee members) and a legacy of flamewars, distrust and apathy. The founding members had a great vision, and many thanks to them for their hard work in establishing Linux Australia (in particular Anand Kumria, Terry Dawson, and Gary Allpike). However, unfortunately it had become caught up in politics and harsh words, and didn’t yet have a strong base that people could get behind. The website was informative but quite difficult to use. The general decision making processes and vision of LA were not firmly established nor particularly transparent. But there was an interest in change for the better from at least 3 of the 5 members.

The party begins
I convinced the committee of the time to have an open AGM at lca2003, to drop the membership fee completely and to grant free membership to all attendees of lca2003. Then, at lca I went and spoke to most of the ~450 people who attended about what, if anything a national body could do for our community. A few people thought there was some usefullness to such an organisation. A few thought it was a complete waste of time. 150 people turned up to the AGM which was fantastic! I had never been on a committee before and I was considering perhaps nominating for an ordinary committee member position, and was absolutely floored when I found out some rogue had nominated me for President (I still don’t know who). I convinced Hugh Blemings and Andrew Tridgell amongst others to run for positions (they went for ordinary committee member positions) and all up we had about 20 people nominated for positions. At the end of the process I was nominated President with an incredibly strong team, namely Stewart Smith (Vice President), Andrew Cowie (Secretary), Anand Kumria (Treasurer), Hugh Blemings, Leon Brooks & Andrew Tridgell (Ordinary Members). Together we forged a strong base on which LA has grown now to almost 1400 members, with strong relationships with other organisations and even Government.

It took a lot of work as we had to create from scratch a vision for Linux Australia which really was focused on being an organisation that supports its members to do great stuff, that drives forward FOSS and the FOSS community in Australia, and that is flexible enough to reflect changing times and community needs. We also had a lot of grunt work to do establishing a useful constitution (many thanks to David Lloyd for helping with this), several policies and procedures for dealing with things usefully, and a whole new precedent for the organisation. In particular, Andrew Cowie helped with this by drawing on his background of building strong foundations for new organisations.

Passing the torch
In 2005 I decided to not run for the President role again, as I strongly felt that passing the torch is extremely important to successful projects coming into their own, and I wanted LA to be about itself, not about Pia Smith (at the time). Many FOSS projects become identified by their top representative, and this is fine in many cases, however it can also be to the detriment of the project. Particularly when it is a community-centric project, rather than a software-centric project. I ran for and won VP, primarily to provide support to the President and some continuity in the organisation. I have been really pleased over the past two years of watching LA be driven by Jon and a couple of great committees, to see that LA now is an entity that has its own momentum, its own identity and ultimately its own sustainability. Rock on to all the wonderful individuals who contributed to making this happen!

How to pick a strong candidate for the LA committee
One of the things I wanted to briefly cover is from my experience what it takes for someone to be a strong candidate and contributor to the LA committee. Below is a top five list of personal attributes I believe are important, and I would urge you all to look for when casting your vote for the LA committee in January. Feel free to add more important attributes in the comments

• Community first - it is important to try wherever possible to put the community before personal feelings or motivations. Being on the LA committee puts you in a position of both representation and personal responsibility
• Good communication skills - all committee members need to try to maintain good communications, an open mind to other perspectives, and in particular be clear about what hat they are wearing at any one time
• Personal responsibility - it is important that candidates are willing to take personal responsibility for any specific tasks, communication, making decisions and whatever comes up (obviously in consultation with the committee). A strong committee only exists where each individual is willing and able to contribute personally
• Being open to constructive criticism - Everyone receives their fair share of criticism, and often there are trolls lurking in the bushes with nothing better to do. Being open to constructive criticism and the possibility that at any time you could actually be wrong is important in keeping the channels of communication open, to growing as a person, and to understanding how to do your job on the committee better
• Finally, and most importantly, positive vision - all the people who have had the best impact on LA have done so not only with a strong vision, but with a strong positive vision. You need to be able to articulate and encourage in a positive way, otherwise your attitude has a net negative impact not only on you and people you communicate with, but on the whole community

I guess these are some things to look for in committee members. It isn’t actually whether they are popular, fun to be around, great coders (or documenters, etc) or even great advocates. It is about what they can bring to Linux Australia and to our community. I would strongly encourage all candidates to really outline their goals and vision in their spiels so people can carefully weigh up what they want to bring to the table alongside other candidates.

Finally
I have been on the Linux Australia committee for 4 years now, two as President and two as Vice President. I’m really proud of what we achieved, particularly in the first two years of Linux Australia and I have met many extremely inspiring people along the way. I look forward to seeing what LA does in 2008 and I wish the best luck to all candidates in the upcoming election. I also call on all people who want to contribute to our wonderful community to put their hands up and nominate themselves for the LA committee. It continually needs new ideas and perspectives to keep it in line with our changing community needs and directions, and it is such a great privilege to serve the Australian FOSS community, which is one of the best FOSS communities in the world. I’d like to thank everyone I have worked with over the past 4 years, in particular Jeff for his constant support and advice, Hugh Blemings and Andrew Tridgell who provided a lot of advice in the first year, Jon Oxer who has been such a great steward of LA over the past 2 years (and hopefully again in 2008!), and to Bdale Garbee, who convinced me in 2003 that I had what it took to “herd cats”.