5 ms·

About 95% of the visitors were men aged from 30-60 and a large proportion of those (including yours truly) could do with dropping a few kilo's. I don't particu

About 95% of the visitors were men aged from 30-60 and a large proportion of those (including yours truly) could do with dropping a few kilo's. I don't particularly care about the gender / race / size of people presenting or visiting as long as everyone is treated fairly and properly. Which seemed the case. Diversity of thought - that is extremely important - and that was on display to a point. I was really disappointed to not see anything from my favoured platform - C# - which would represent conceptual diversity. Which is a shame because the more that we normalise OSS in that ecosystem the better.

fignews 4y ago
Ended up speaking to a C# dev from the Italian speaking part of Switzerland but obviously not a common language.
- radicalbyte 4y ago
  It's one of the major languages, just not so much in the OSS community because of the culture of Microsoft hate. Which made sense back then - Microsoft (and Apple) both earned that for what they did to Amiga. However Oracle are currently much worse but you never hear people hating on Java for that (they hate on Java because change is glacial, which is a symptom of Oracle).
college_physics 4y ago
> Diversity of thought - that is extremely important The beauty of gender and ethnic diversity is that it help with diversity of thought as well. From motivating tech for more diverse sets of applications, to making it more inclusive in terms of localization, removing subtle biases in implementations (e.g. music tools that do not reflect purely western music traditions - to mention something concrete) Its a tough nut to crack, as we don't need token initiatives but ideas that are authentic in the OSS context and can undo the entrenched society-wide lack of inclusion for certain groups.
- 0x445442 4y ago
  Society doesn’t need equal representation in every field of endeavor. It only needs to remove institutional barriers to entry. I’d argue those barriers really don’t exist now and that lamenting over group preferences is a fool’s errand. I don’t see those lamenting over the lack of “diversity” in STEM having any issue with the lack of diversity in the NBA.
  - rtpg 4y ago
    So if it’s 0% it’s fine? What’s the line? What’s the number where it’s not weird? There are plenty of practical barriers in IT tech events, evidenced in having to constantly remind men at events that this professional event isn’t a mixer so chill with the PUA behavior, to stop assuming every woman they meet here at the event is in sales or advertising, to not doing events at strip clubs… (I’m assuming you’re male) how many times have you had to disengage from a professional group conversation because one person is just constantly hitting on you? Ask your women coworkers how often this happens. Everyone is different and should be judged as such, but I’ve been in community events where this sort of behavior isn’t rampant and it’s a million times better. And yeah, turns out that having a more representative organizational community does wonders for that. I don’t know the FOSDEM environment, and I imagine it’s much better than the norm on this front.
    - radicalbyte 4y ago
      It wasn't 0%. For me - it was actually 100% female for the presentations I attended. Spent most of the weekend walking around and talking to people :)
    - 0x445442 4y ago
      > What’s the line? What’s the number where it’s not weird? There is no line that's weird. What's weird is expecting there to be a line like %50.7% female or %14.2 black. > (I’m assuming you’re male) how many times have you had to disengage from a professional group conversation because one person is just constantly hitting on you? Ask your women coworkers how often this happens. If this is happening at work it sounds like an unprofessional work environment in which case you have recourse. If the problem persists after making the unprofessional behavior known to leadership then there's probably systemic issues with that organization that go beyond just sexual harassment. As an aside, I've had to disengage from professional group conversations a number of times because of my political and religious beliefs, which also should not be a problem at work. > Everyone is different and should be judged as such, but I’ve been in community events where this sort of behavior isn’t rampant and it’s a million times better. And yeah, turns out that having a more representative organizational community does wonders for that. This sounds like you choosing how to spend your free time and if you think the "quality" of an event is effected by how many different skin colors and the percentage of gender participate, great. It also sounds like nothing is stopping you from doing that so I don't see an issue here.
jen20 4y ago
> I was really disappointed to not see anything from my favoured platform The beauty of FOSDEM is that you can make that happen next year if you’d like.
- radicalbyte 4y ago
  That's just what I'm thinking of doing :)
nickpeterson 4y ago
Don’t let Microsoft hear this or they’ll enroll 1000 employees next year to win FOSDEM.

fignews 4y ago

Ended up speaking to a C# dev from the Italian speaking part of Switzerland but obviously not a common language.

radicalbyte 4y ago
It's one of the major languages, just not so much in the OSS community because of the culture of Microsoft hate. Which made sense back then - Microsoft (and Apple) both earned that for what they did to Amiga. However Oracle are currently much worse but you never hear people hating on Java for that (they hate on Java because change is glacial, which is a symptom of Oracle).

college_physics 4y ago

> Diversity of thought - that is extremely important The beauty of gender and ethnic diversity is that it help with diversity of thought as well. From motivating tech for more diverse sets of applications, to making it more inclusive in terms of localization, removing subtle biases in implementations (e.g. music tools that do not reflect purely western music traditions - to mention something concrete) Its a tough nut to crack, as we don't need token initiatives but ideas that are authentic in the OSS context and can undo the entrenched society-wide lack of inclusion for certain groups.

0x445442 4y ago
Society doesn’t need equal representation in every field of endeavor. It only needs to remove institutional barriers to entry. I’d argue those barriers really don’t exist now and that lamenting over group preferences is a fool’s errand. I don’t see those lamenting over the lack of “diversity” in STEM having any issue with the lack of diversity in the NBA.
- rtpg 4y ago
  So if it’s 0% it’s fine? What’s the line? What’s the number where it’s not weird? There are plenty of practical barriers in IT tech events, evidenced in having to constantly remind men at events that this professional event isn’t a mixer so chill with the PUA behavior, to stop assuming every woman they meet here at the event is in sales or advertising, to not doing events at strip clubs… (I’m assuming you’re male) how many times have you had to disengage from a professional group conversation because one person is just constantly hitting on you? Ask your women coworkers how often this happens. Everyone is different and should be judged as such, but I’ve been in community events where this sort of behavior isn’t rampant and it’s a million times better. And yeah, turns out that having a more representative organizational community does wonders for that. I don’t know the FOSDEM environment, and I imagine it’s much better than the norm on this front.
  - radicalbyte 4y ago
    It wasn't 0%. For me - it was actually 100% female for the presentations I attended. Spent most of the weekend walking around and talking to people :)
  - 0x445442 4y ago
    > What’s the line? What’s the number where it’s not weird? There is no line that's weird. What's weird is expecting there to be a line like %50.7% female or %14.2 black. > (I’m assuming you’re male) how many times have you had to disengage from a professional group conversation because one person is just constantly hitting on you? Ask your women coworkers how often this happens. If this is happening at work it sounds like an unprofessional work environment in which case you have recourse. If the problem persists after making the unprofessional behavior known to leadership then there's probably systemic issues with that organization that go beyond just sexual harassment. As an aside, I've had to disengage from professional group conversations a number of times because of my political and religious beliefs, which also should not be a problem at work. > Everyone is different and should be judged as such, but I’ve been in community events where this sort of behavior isn’t rampant and it’s a million times better. And yeah, turns out that having a more representative organizational community does wonders for that. This sounds like you choosing how to spend your free time and if you think the "quality" of an event is effected by how many different skin colors and the percentage of gender participate, great. It also sounds like nothing is stopping you from doing that so I don't see an issue here.

jen20 4y ago

> I was really disappointed to not see anything from my favoured platform The beauty of FOSDEM is that you can make that happen next year if you’d like.

radicalbyte 4y ago
That's just what I'm thinking of doing :)

nickpeterson 4y ago

Don’t let Microsoft hear this or they’ll enroll 1000 employees next year to win FOSDEM.