The Gnome Outreach Program for Women

Efforts to encourage the participation of women in free and open source software (FOSS) have come and gone for over a decade, most with limited success. However, few can match the success of GNOME Outreach Program for Women the [1]. In fact, the program has been so successful that it is now expanding rapidly into other projects. The secret of the success? Simply that there is none. According to program organizer Marina Zhurakhinskaya, all that is needed to encourage women to apply is "inviting women specifically to participate." Everything else is a matter of maximizing interns' chances for success, exactly as any efficient mentoring program tries to do. The first incarnation of the program began in 2006, after Hanna Wallach and Chris Ball observed that none of the Google Summer of Code applications to work with Gnome were from women. With Google's help, Wallach and Ball started six internships for women, receiving more than 100 applications. However, the program was not revived until December 2010. The relaunched program proved an immediate and consistent success. "We couldn't keep it to ourselves," says Karen Sandler, the executive director of the Gnome Foundation. After a pilot program with the Twisted Software Foundation [2], over the past year, the Outreach Program for Women has expanded to include 18 other participating organizations [3], ranging from KDE and Mozilla to Wikimedia and Tor.

A Model for Mentoring

Ever since its revival in 2010, the Outreach Program has distinguished itself by its efforts to maximize interns' chances for success. Unlike other FOSS mentoring programs, the program welcomes not only developers, but also documenters, localizers, artists, marketers, and other potential contributors [1]. Similarly, the revived project has made strong efforts to expand its pool of applicants. Unlike applicants to the Summer of Code, candidates for the Outreach Program do not need to be registered students. Additionally, one of the two annual rounds of internships begins in December, making it possible for those in the southern hemisphere to treat participation as a summer project. Even more importantly, applicants must make a contribution to a project before the program even starts. This requirement not only proves applicants' competence, but also introduces interns to their mentors, who can help them decide upon manageable projects, and teaches the mechanics of contributing to their chosen projects. "Our strongest applicants contribute a lot more than a single small contribution during the application process, and have started developing relationships in the community before they are doing so in an official capacity," Zhurakhinskaya says. "Depending on the nature of the internship, there are some introductory sessions and materials that we recommend." From the perspective of interns, this preparation can mean the difference between fitting in and completing their projects and dropping out. Meg Ford, who's done three internships with the Outreach Program explains:

Because there are very few women in FOSS communities, at first it can be particularly difficult to feel you are among peers. This creates a very high barrier of entry for women, because a lot of the information needed for developing FOSS software is not written down. It is communicated by the developers, either on mailing lists or on IRC. The feeling of being out of place or appearing stupid can make asking questions and asking for help more difficult. I think this is true for all new developers, but there is a fairly common perception in society that women are not capable of understanding math and science. Because of this, women can be particularly self-conscious about asking for help.

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