Episode: 488
Title: HPR0488: Pegwole interviews Debbie Nicholson
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0488/hpr0488.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-07 21:36:35

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Before you listen to this interview, I would like to add that I did not record this.
That aka board dragonwood actually helped me because I misplaced my laptop charger and his opinions do not reflect those of mine or the interview.
We are going to try it again because the first interview didn't happen to grip.
I'm here with Debbie Nicholson of the free software foundation.
Hi Debbie.
Hi, how's it going?
It's pretty good.
I first actually met you itself, which for people that don't know a Southeast Linux Fest, which was hosted by Dave Yates.
Dave Yates is here today at Ohio Linux Fest.
We actually had a gut contest last night in front of the tell.
That's a story for another day.
What's one of the latest things you're working on?
Well, I'm a ship coordinator.
Dave and Dave were a lot of outreach.
Especially in the past year, there's been a lot of energy and interest in finding out why the free software is not, well, has a less than 2% participation ratio for women.
We did a mini summit a week ago in our offices to look at concrete things that could be done about that.
Some of this would fall into kind of the general category of mentoring and support and creating networking opportunities for women, more ways to create linkages within the community across all sorts of stuff and just coders, but folks that are doing outreach or user design or any aspect of free software motion.
And other things that we were looking at were kind of de-emphasizing coding as being the only thing.
The over emphasis on code makes it really difficult to move forward.
Someone has to do the outreach and if we only prize folks that are sort of not interested in doing that, then we're not really going to be able to keep moving forward and bring more people into the movement.
And then I would say the last thing was sort of just more, I guess, best practices in the way that people interact with each other and, you know, sort of putting out there that the sexist behavior isn't okay in the community.
We're certainly not the first people to say that.
But that was amongst the things that we covered.
I'm looking forward to having folks come to Boston and the spring for Libre Planet.
We're going to be holding a much larger day long event on that same topic and talking about bringing women into the movement and how free software is really a social justice movement and not, you know,
or merely like a clubhouse or something.
Actually, I was offered cake. Just throwing that out there.
Yes. I still have not got that cake yet.
I'm hoping, but, yes, I was actually offered a slice of cake to join due Linux.
330 offered me cake and still haven't got the cake.
But, you know, I'm enjoying Linux. I should say Gnu Linux since you're sitting right here.
I am sitting right here.
Can I weigh in on the Gnu Linux?
Oh, yeah. All right, everyone.
This is Lord Drakenblut, the digital dragon.
Now, on the whole Gnu Linux thing, I've got a couple things I'd like to say here, and I hope I don't offend the fine lady over here.
But I think everyone trying to force must say Gnu Linux on every distro is a bit over eager, over zealous,
and pointless at a way because puts a certain branding behind it that some distros do not back.
Some things where they're already including the binary bits that, you know,
the free software foundation do not support.
You know, should you be trying to get a group like Ubuntu who will put those in there and make them easily accessible so users can get them?
Should you be asking that distro to call themselves a Gnu Linux distro?
In my opinion, no.
Things, though, like Gnu sense a 2-2, the ones that strip out all of them, having those branded as Gnu Linux,
I think is a perfectly wonderful thing and creates an understanding for people of the difference between those two levels.
But trying to say everything is Linux plus Gnu is, you know, I've been saying for quite a while,
is nothing with installments saying, look at us, we're still important.
Well, yeah, everyone knows you're still important.
Stop trying to, you know, ring a bell and get attention to you when you're a part of a community not trying to be the focal point of it.
That's a thought I've had on it.
Well, that wasn't exactly a question.
And I'm certainly not Richard and so I can't exactly speak to what his mission might or might not be a personally on that.
I do know that a lot of those distros are all using Gnu code.
And I think that that's where that's coming from.
This isn't an issue that I want to spend hours talking about because I don't think it's like a super great use of time.
You know, the language is important for the things that's important for.
I don't want that to eclipse the other work that's being done.
Well, personally, I think, you know, if they're using the Gnu code, then yes, it should be good clinics.
That's my opinion and, well, not to be rude and crude, but, you know, they say about opinions.
Some are important.
And we all know yours.
Look, it's my podcast for my opinions important.
I will pull a Jeremy on this one.
Oh, well, thank you actually for a few.
And I'm sorry for the first interview because it just did not go right at all.
And I've actually lost my laptop charts, I'm how?
Just like I forgot my shirts.
I don't even know what to say anymore now.
It has been a weekend of just, wow, I'm retarded.
I do think I have a question that would legitimate question.
Now, with there being a 2% female users, users within X, how does that stack against overall?
Yeah, how would that?
Okay.
Obviously, Microsoft has the lion's share of the desktop market.
Like, the user numbers are better.
Like, it's not that women aren't using computers.
I don't think that's the problem.
Whereas in the developer, we'll create the software.
The proprietary software world does a much better job than 2%.
I don't want to pick a number out of the air, but it's something more like 20%.
It's a significantly better job.
So it's not a problem with, it's not a problem that women don't want to develop and promote and be involved in the proliferation of software.
It's a problem that the free software community has not been welcoming or when they have minutes to be welcoming has not been good at retaining women in the movement.
So that was sort of what we were looking at.
It's probably, like, those numbers are worse than proprietary software.
It's worse than any other sort of technical code, you know, engineering, still doing better.
So it's definitely a specific problem that we can at least achieve, like, that kind of a parody so that it's we're not the worst example ever.
Actually, I think really most of the problem is when you go to, okay, as a woman, if you walked into a room, nothing but dudes on computers, you would, wouldn't you most likely go, wow, I'm just going to, you know, sit over here somewhere.
I don't think it's that it's dudes on computers. I think it's that it's dudes.
It's that it, do you know what I'm saying? Like, the computers aren't the scary part.
The scary part or the uncomfortable part to use a more specific word is being the only woman in the room.
And then it makes it, it makes it a really skewed and strange sort of social interaction because, you know, you either get ignored or you get like a lot of really seriously weird attention.
Like, oh my god, do you want to, you could sit in the pink chair.
And it's like, that's weird. I just wanted to show up and be treated like a person.
So, it's not that computers. It's the, it's, it's that it's really difficult to be in like a super intense minority like that.
When we actually got to southeast Linux fast, we expected really, you know, the neckbeard party.
And 330 goes, he's just looking around like, you know, just all weird and he goes, dude, there's actually women here.
He goes, it's, it's not like I'm going to go out of my way to, you know, be weird, but there's women at a Linux conference.
It's shocked the crap out of it.
I think one of the things that they did really well at that event, which is sort of classic organizing, is that they specifically invited the people that they wanted to come.
And then they invited again, followed up just to make sure that they knew that despite the general tenor of the community and the general level of welcomeness, we really, really want here.
And, and we, like it wasn't just, I invited the room full of people and you happen to be standing in there.
It's like, we really want you here.
Now, that 2% number, we all know within the, you know, Linux realm and hackers in general, that user names, nicknames, screen names can be very misleading.
So how much give do you think they're not just a set of females involved?
You know, do you think the number could be maybe not significantly higher, but higher than the estimated 2% and maybe make a guess is to how much higher that might be?
That number comes from Floss Pulse, not from my personal anecdotal cruising of IRC.
It comes from the Floss Pulse community and that's, you can look at the background on those numbers.
I do think that a lot of women specifically choose an androgynous screen name so that they don't get trolled when they come into IRC or, you know, other places that they participate online.
I mean, if you want to look at the Floss Pulse thing, I think that would give you a sense of how thorough and where those numbers came from and how much fluff is in there.
I'm not a statistician, so I, I don't want to pick more numbers.
Well, Debbie, I'd definitely thank you for the interview and I'll do another one real quick soon.
Alright, well, thanks for, you know, tolerating me on this TJ and I'm sorry if I offended you with that.
It was meant to be a question and somehow I just couldn't turn it in.
I guess going back to that, the question is how, you know, how important do you think making sure that all distros are known as plus canoe or just Linux,
whereas, you know, could it be a wiser thing in a way to split the ones that are, you know, meeting the FSFs, you know, guidelines of free as those being Linux plus canoe distros and then everything else being known as Linux distros.
Yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to stick with my original answer on that like I don't want to spend a lot of time talking about the language issue.
And I don't think the FSF wants to spend time like policing, like to make that a further complicated issue and say that we want some distros to use this language and some to use others.
I think it would just make a further complex for not as much outcome as the amount of complexity would warrant.
Thank you for listening to HACRA Public Radio.
This is PR sponsored by Carol.net, so head on over to C-A-R-O dot N-E-T for all of her team.
