Back in mid-February, I was invited to participate in a review of EU government policy support research on gender issues in Free Software communities at the University of Cambridge. The meeting was fascinating to me not only because of my level of interest in the content, but also because the reviewers were a wonderfully diverse group of genuinely interesting people. I also must admit that being a guest of Kings College for two nights was quite an experience in and of itself...

As someone who has been a strong proponent of the idea that approaches and technologies adopted by Free Software developers are something other communities might want to borrow from or emulate, I found the results of this research both disturbing and enlightening. The disturbance centers around just how strongly male-biased our current behaviors seem to be in practice, particularly in the Debian project. My moment of enlightenment was the realization that many of the ideas we discussed about how to encourage and enable more female participation in our communities could simultaneously make our projects more appealing and rewarding to all of our contributors!

I've talked to various people about this research in my travels since the meeting in February, and many have followed up asking for pointers to the findings. I was pleased to learn this morning that the integrated report of findings and recommendations from this work are finally available online.

I hope at least some of you will read this report, and will then be as interested as I am in looking for ways to change the status quo. Perhaps a BOF at the upcoming Debian developer's conference to discuss these results and brainstorm specific actions we can take in the Debian project would be a good place to start? I expect to arrive late on the 15th, and must depart early on the morning of the 21st...