Update on Open Source & feminism stuff

[juliet]

A couple of days ago I linked to a presentation on women & open source made by damned_colonial, and an ongoing and quite frustrating discussion on O'Reilly Radar.

An update, in case you're interested: Randal L. Schwartz has apologised (worth reading the comments in which he notes that he was not pressured into this by Linux Fund but actually sat down & did some thinking himself).

Comments

[zebrallama.livejournal.com]

Fantastic! Thanks for posting this.

[djm4]

The thing I like about Randal's apology (which I agree isn't perfect) is that it's not defensive. It acknowledges that he was defensive at first, but the thing he's doing mostly now is listening.

That sets an example. It's an apology you can point people to and say 'look, that's how to do it; that's how to re-rail a discussion that you've previously helped to de-rail'. Obviously, it would be great if that never needed to be said, and it would be great if everyone had enough privilege to be able to re-rail a conversation in this way. As we're not remotely at that stage yet, I'll take someone with Randal's privilege visibly looking like he's trying to acquire clue as a thing worth cheering.

[juliet]

Yes, agreed. And that he didn't get defensive or outraged again when he saw people being cynical about his motives.

Wait to see what actually happens now!