Who has been involved in an open source project?

What's your role in it?

Hello I am Cheuk

Open-Source contributor
Organisers of community events
PSF director and fellow
Community manager at OpenSSF

Why open source governance is difference?

Open Source

Proprietary Software

Sometimes no clear owner or own by the community
Mainly consists of volunteer work
Some hierarchy, not rigid
Less commitment from contributors
User driven

Own by org, an individual or a business
Paid staff and engineers
Clear hierarchy and role
Staff are hired for consistent responsibility
Profit driven

What is meritocracy?

Applying meritocracy

The rise of BDFLs

BDFL

is short for Benevolent Dictator For Life

Only a small number of open-source software development leaders owns this title

Can you name a few?

It highlights their excellent contribution to Open Source ecosystem

They inspire the next generation of developers

But there are rarely any women and people of color own that title...

In meritocracy

We believed in elites
We trust they know the best
We think the best person can lead us

everyone with skill and imagination may aspire to reach the highest level

But...

is everyone given the same resources and opportunity to reach that level?

Meet Marlene

Zimbabwean software engineer
Previous director and vice-chair for the PSF
Founder of ZimboPy: non-profit that helps Zimbabwean women in tech

During her keynote at PyCon IT 2023

A male Italian developer asked: I don't see how we are different, why do we need to put effort in diversity and inclusion

Here's what she said

We are not given the same access to resources, when I was young, I did not have access to a computer. I only started programming in my 20s.

Compared to you, I did not grow up in an environment that supported my career as a software developer.

That's the difference.

We are not all on the same level playing field

Not about one's ability
Depends on social expectation
Depends on access to resources
We are not giving the same oppotunity

If not meritocracy, what else?

do-ocracy

Recently I learnt a new term:

A do-ocracy is an organizational structure in which individuals choose roles and tasks for themselves and execute them.

Responsibilities attach to people who do the work, rather than elected or selected officials.

Source: https://communitywiki.org/wiki/DoOcracy

So now with do-ocracy

You don't need to reach to high level
Everyone was given a chance
No more gatekeeping

Is it true thought?

Open source is do-ocracy (kind of)

Always more work to do
Anyone can derive their project
Less gatekeeping (compared to proprietary)

Is Open Source Open to Women?

Just 5.4% of GitHub users with over 10 contributions from our random sample are female.

Source: https://www.toptal.com/open-source/is-open-source-open-to-women

Among women who join the tech industry, 56 percent leave by mid-career, which is double the attrition rate for men.

Python Core Devs

developers who have commit rights
8 women
out of 87 active ones
less than 10%

Why?

the community is a do-ocracy community
but when it comes to technical leadership there are still few women
"why there are so few female core devs?"
what is lacking here?

Meet Mariatta

1st female Python core dev
PyCon chair of 2023 & 2024
10+ years in tech

I asked her why there are few female core devs

Here are a few point she mentioned

Women need to work hard in their day job due to bias
Spending long and committed time for contribution is hard when you are required a lot in your day job
Mostly only big companies will support employees to use work hours for oss contribution
Despite CoC enforcement, micro-aggression still exist so not a truly welcoming enviroment