Ada Initiative Supports Women in Open Source, Counters Sexism

“In the last two years, sexism in free and open source software
(FOSS) culture has been increasingly discussed and documented. (See
Sexism: Open Source Software’s Dirty Little Secret.) However,
little has been done about it.

“Now, women’s advocates Valerie Aurora and Mary Gardiner are
determined to change this situation by the creation of The Ada
Initiative, a non-profit organization to encourage women’s
participation in both FOSS and related groups such as the Free
Culture Movement and Wikipedia. It’s an ambitious effort, but one
that the founders are determined to make, despite the inevitable
hostility with which their efforts will be received in some
circles.

“Both Aurora and Gardiner have been active in FOSS women’s
groups for over a decade. However, the catalyst for the Ada
Initiative was the hostile responses to Noirin Shirley’s account of
being sexually assaulted at ApacheCon in November 2010. The
incident led to Aurora, Gardiner, and other members of the Geek
Feminism blog to draft sample anti-harassment policies for
conferences, and eventually to Aurora quitting her work as a
full-time kernel developer at Red Hat to focus on the issues
involved.

“Named after Ada Lovelace, an associate of Charles Babbage who
is often credited with being the first computer programmer, The Ada
Initiative is intended as a means to do the kind of intensive work
that is difficult — if not impossible — when relying on
volunteers”

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