Hey all, Based on a private request (and with permission to bring it into public), here is a link to the most recent diversity survey at Apache.
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/COMDEV/ASF+Committer+Diversity+Survey+-+2016 The survey covered over 700 of our then 5k+ committers. It showed clearly that women are dramatically underrepresented. Among the respondents who were black, the response rate was too low to be statistically relevant. However, the numbers are so small that they do provide good preliminary evidence that black people are even more dramatically underrepresented at Apache than women are. But this is only in our committer base, and doesn't cover our contributors. Also there have been (unfortunately rather vague) criticisms expressed about the wording of the questions. Still. At those response rates, it's safe to say Apache has less than the 22.5% women that is the industry average for programmers (in the US). In any given quarter we have roughly 3300 active contributors. With about 5% women contributing, we are "missing" over 700 contributors among women alone. What could our projects do with 700 more contributors? This argument even neglects the widely acknowledged truth that people who are different from us bring significantly different perspectives which can help us find new problems and new solutions. The survey provides an incomplete picture and the data is imperfect. In addition, we need to find ways to think about diversity that do justice to the international nature of our foundation and our projects. But this survey is at least an excellent argument for seeking more data and a deeper understanding. Best Regards, Myrle
