ROSE Blog: Rikki's Open Source Exchange

Valerie Aurora wrote an excellent article for lwn.net, The Dark Side of Open Source Conferences. Currently, the article is only available to lwn.net subscribers, but you can write to Valerie to get the link, or wait until the post is publicly available in a few days.

In her article, Valerie talks about the bad experiences several women have had at open source events over the years, and she discusses the recently created generic anti-harassment policy for open source conferences. "Judging from the past ten years of my experience, harassment at open source conferences is not going to stop all by itself. We have to take action," she says.

Valerie says that she decides which events to attend based on the reputation of the event organizers, feedback from friends, and any personal experiences she's had with the events. "For example, anything run by the Linux Foundation will be extremely professional, respectful of women, and rank high on the getting-stuff-done factor" she says. I agree with her take on Linux Foundation events, and I'll add that Linux Foundation event organizers make extra efforts to foster a professional, friendly, diverse, and productive environment.

If you'd like your favorite open source event to adopt an anti-harassment policy, check out the list of events and email addresses provided in a Geek Feminism blog post, Get your conference conference anti-harassment policy here!

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