‘Patches don’t have gender’: What is not open in open source software

Nafus, Dawn

doi:10.1177/1461444811422887

Cited by 149 publications

(83 citation statements)

References 23 publications

(25 reference statements)

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“…Sixth, and )rit)ally, even with the emphasis on opening a))ess for making te)hnology, data and knowledge, the sexist behaviours and prejudi)e against female )oderss )ompeten)es are stll prevalent in 'opens initatves and spa)es and thus deter wider and more sustained female part)ipaton (Ford and Waj)man, 2017;Nafus, 2012;Terrell et al, 2017). Against the sexist pra)t)es and more broadly the mas)uline narratves of innovaton, te)hnology and ha)king, an in)reasing range of female-fo)used or -friendly initatves a)ross many global )ites have been organised to ha)k the )ulture and ontology of ha)king (Rosner and Fox, 2016).…”

Section: Urbanisation Of Shared Technology Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shared technology making in neoliberal ruins

Perng¹

2018

Preprint

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Published as an open a))ess pre-print on OSFPreprint: https://osf.io/k793w Abstract Shared te)hnology making refers to the pra)t)es, spa)es and events that bear the hope and belief that )ollaboratve and open ways of designing, making and modifying te)hnology )an improve our ways of living. Shared te)hnology making in the )ontext of the smart )ity reinvigorates exploratons of the possibility of free, open and )ollaboratve ways of engineering urban spa)es, infrastru)tures and publi) life. Open innovaton events and )ivi) ha)king initatves ofen en)ourage members of lo)al )ommunites, residents, or )ity administratons to part)ipate so that the problems they fa)e and the knowledge they possess )an be leveraged to develop innovatons from the working (and failure) of urban everyday life and (non-)expert knowledges. However, the in)orporaton of shared te)hnology making into urban )ontexts engender )on)erns around the right to part)ipate in shared te)hnology-and )ity-making. This paper addresses this issue by suggestng ways to )onsider both the neoliberal patterning of shared te)hnology making and the pat)hes and gaps that show the future possibility of shared )ity making. It explores the ways in whi)h shared te)hnology making are organised using ha)kathons and other ha)king initatves as an example. By providing a ha)kathon typology and detailed a))ounts of the experien)es of organisers and part)ipants of related events, the paper re)onsiders the neoliberalisaton of shared te)hnology making. It attends to the multple, entangled and )onfi)tual relatonships that do not follow )orporate logi) for )onsidering the possibilites of more open and )ollaboratve ways of te)hnology-and )ity-making.

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Section: Urbanisation Of Shared Technology Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shared technology making in neoliberal ruins

Perng¹

2018

Preprint

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“…Anthropologist Gabriella Coleman has argued that hackers deploy a range of stances including agnosticism and denial of formal politics (exceeding software freedom), though implications for intellectual property in particular are at least implicit and often explicit in the technical and social practices of hacking (2012) 2 . Scholars have noted that the denial of formal politics makes free and open source software (F/OSS) an unlikely site for gender activism, at least historically (Nafus, 2012;Reagle, 2013). But F/OSS projects are not monolithic, and have matured over time.…”

Section: Politics Of Open Technology Projects and Their Relationshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These initiatives begin with a critique of the liberal Habermasian citizen in how the activists frame and address the problem: they openly admit that there is inequality in their communities, and acknowledge the effects of positionality in producing different rates of participation between men and women. (Not everyone in these technical communities agrees with this assessment, but amongst the advocates addressing "diversity," it is not controversial [see Nafus, 2012;Reagle, 2013].) This is consonant with the acknowledgement by feminist STS researcher Wendy Faulkner and others that context matters, and "one size does not fit all": "the same measures [to improve gender inclusion in work with communication technologies] may not be effective with different groups or in different settings" (Faulkner, 2004, p. 14;Sørensen, Faulkner, & Rommes, 2011).…”

Section: Diversity Advocacy In Open Technology Culturesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This report showed that while women's presence in proprietary software was around 28%, in F/OSS it was an astonishing 1.5% (Ghosh 2005). The reasons for this disparity were wide-ranging, probably including such factors as domestic divisions of labor that set up men in heterosexual partnerships to have more leisure time to pursue affective technical passions, wider historical and cultural factors that gendered computing masculine, and the persistent notion that F/OSS projects were liberal, egalitarian spaces where social identity was irrelevant, among others (Karanovic, 2009;Lin, 2006;Nafus, 2012;Reagle, 2013). …”

Section: Diversity Advocacy In Open Technology Culturesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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“Freedom from jobs” or learning to love to labor? Diversity advocacy and working imaginaries in Open Technology Projects

Dunbar-Hester

2016

TEKN

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This paper examines imaginaries of work and labor in “open technology” projects (especially open source software and hackerspaces), based on ethnographic research in North America. It zeroes in on “diversity initiatives” within open technology projects. These initiatives are important because they expose many of the assumptions and tensions that surround participatory cultures. On the one hand, these projects and spaces are organized around voluntarism; in theory, everyone who wishes to participate is welcome to do so. On the other hand, diversity initiatives form in order to address the “problem” of imbalance in the ranks of participants. Technology is a unique domain for the discharge of political energies. In collective imagination, it has been vested with the power to initiate change (even as this belief obscures the role of social and economic relations). Multiple ideas circulate about the relationships between diversity in open technology projects and paid labor. This paper argues that in part due to the legacy of technical hobbies as training grounds for technical employment for much of the twentieth century, as documented by historians of radio (Douglas, 1987; Haring, 2006), voluntaristic technology projects are vexed sites for imagining political emancipation. To a large degree, diversity initiatives in open technology projects are consistent with corporate values of diversity as a marketplace value. At the same time, collectivity formations around technology that incorporate feminist, antiracist, or social justice framings may begin to generate connections between diversity advocacy in tech fields and social justice movements or policy changes in order to effect deep social change.

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“…For Nafus (2012), engaging in the development of free and open source software is 'craft-like'. Writing software code scratches the programmers' itch of making, sharing, examining and improving the code by removing bugs in it, which motivate the programmers to become involved in such 'communities' and stay.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%