I was happy to see Kirrily Robert’s “Standing Out in the Crowd” OSCON keynote (slides) make the rounds after she published a lengthy transcript of her talk on her blog.
Given that diversity in technology is something that I’ve written about before, I find Kirrily’s approach insightful and useful. Rather than being accusatory, she offers several tips worth repeating (which she expands on in her post):
- Recruit diversity
- Say it. Mean it.
- Tools. (Tools are easy.)
- Transparency.
- Don’t stare.
- Value all contributions.
- Call people on their crap.
- Pay attention.
As open source becomes more mainstream, it is imperative that the community consider how to grow the active and involved base of contributors — so that increasing amounts of work can be parceled out and effectively handled in a way that is consistent with the values of open source.
The risk in not becoming more inclusive in our architectures of participation is to lose the opportunity to craft a new kind of culture that values transparency and respect and that offers meaningful work for all contributors, regardless of demographics.
As Kirrily rightly asserts, We’re not far enough along in our plans for world domination that we can afford to turn anyone away.