> We can still assert that women are under-represented in open source > projects compared to the rest of the industry (see my last post) and > that there are systemic factors behind that.
I would agree. I support reasonable efforts to address under-representation and the systemic factors behind them. I think this is appropriate, even a duty, for large open-source projects with the resources to devote some of those resources to addressing these issues. I am open to arguments that the value of meritocracy is a systemic factor and de-prioritizing meritocracy as a value will help address under-representation in a real way. I am not convinced though that the concept of meritocracy itself is a systemic factor in under-representation. I can see how meritocracy could be misused based on how merit is assigned and/or defined. I can see how that could be used against people, for a variety of reasons including discrimination. I also think this is mitigated at least partially by the transparency of open source, the scarcity of resources in open source, and the ability to fork open source projects. I am also not convinced that de-prioritizing meritocracy as a value will help address under-representation in a real way. I think what is meant by meritocracy in an open source project should be defined and done so in a way that promotes diversity and inclusion, but not done away with. I would like to see data from organizations that followed this path and how effective it was at diversity and what effect, if any, it had on output. I worry that saying we have to abandon meritocracy as a value, given the general understanding of that word, to promote diversity and inclusion sends the wrong messages. First that the people the project is trying to reach will never be able to participate on a level playing field with existing contributors, which is horribly condescending and factually not true. Second that Mozilla is lowering it's standards in any way, that's what some people will believe and like it or not it affects perception of the project. _______________________________________________ governance mailing list governance@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
