Introduction
Over the past few decades, open-source software has demonstrated a remarkable ability to grow and evolve. Today, the Internet and most smartphones rely on open-source software. Moreover, most major technology companies have adopted the open-source software model to some extent, leveraging its greater opportunities for innovation and ability to address errors and issues quickly.
Despite the practical success that open-source software has achieved, the ethical foundation on which it was built risks being reduced to mere slogans with diminishing real-world impact over time. The open-source movement was founded on principles that prioritize freedom above all. To achieve this value, the movement’s discourse embraced principles of openness, inclusivity, and democracy.
However, several phenomena raise doubts about how closely the open-source software community adheres to these principles in daily practice. The most prominent and impactful phenomenon is the extremely low rate of women’s inclusion in open-source software projects, a trend that has persisted since the movement’s inception and remains largely unchanged today.
The underrepresentation of women in the open-source software community has significant harmful consequences. On one hand, it impacts efforts to empower women and achieve gender equity and equality. On the other hand, it also affects the future of open-source software itself, limiting its potential for growth and effectiveness due to a lack of gender diversity.
This phenomenon also tests the movement’s principles and calls its credibility into question, thereby diminishing its appeal, particularly for women. In turn, this creates a situation where numerous challenges and opportunities coexist. While the challenges hindering women’s inclusion in the open-source software community are significant, the potential opportunities to overcome these barriers are substantial and crucial for both gender equality efforts and the future of open-source software.
This paper seeks to discuss the challenges facing the integration of women into the open-source software community and the opportunities that achieving this integration could provide. The paper first presents the current reality of women’s participation in the open-source software community and projects through statistics illustrating the rates, scale, and level of this participation.
In its second section, the paper addresses the most significant challenges hindering women’s integration into the open-source software community through three key themes: cultural bias and discrimination, the challenge of balancing the demands of daily life for working women, and obstacles related to the open-source software community itself and its lack of regulatory frameworks.
In its third section, the paper explores the opportunities that could arise from successfully integrating women into the open-source software community. Finally, it discusses various approaches to achieving this inclusion, including mentorship and training programs, inclusive policies for open-source projects, and support for community networks.
The Current State of Women’s Participation in Open-Source Software
A report published by GitHub in 2017, based on a survey of open-source software projects hosted on the platform, acknowledges that gender disparity in these projects remains profound. According to the platform’s statistics, 95% of the survey respondents were men, while only 3% were women, and 1% identified as non-binary.
Among those surveyed by the platform, 68% of women expressed a strong interest in contributing in the future, a percentage very close to that of men, at 73%. However, 45% of women said their likelihood of actual participation was high, compared to 61% for men. This means that while the interest in participation is very similar, the gap widens regarding actual involvement based on that interest.
The same report provided further details based on participants’ responses to various questions. One key point highlighted in the report was that 25% of women said they encountered language or content on the site that made them feel unwelcome. Additionally, 12% of women reported experiencing gender stereotyping, compared to just 2% of men.
A more recent study conducted in 2023 relied on the World of Code (WoC). World of Code is a software infrastructure for research and analysis that collects vast data about millions of open-source software projects on GitHub. The study used a preliminary sample based on selecting the most popular projects on the site, representing seventeen programming languages. The study analyzed around 21 million contributions made by 10,732 programmers across more than 81.7 million independent projects in its second phase.
The study found that, out of 10,255 male participants, only 477 women contributed to the selected projects. In all 17 projects, except for one, the percentage of women’s participation was 7.5% or less. At the level of detailed contributions, the average number of contributions for men was 23.2, while the average for women was 11.85—about half of that of men.
The study confirmed that women make fewer contributions, both to coding tasks and to writing auxiliary files. Overall, women contributed 0.57 million to all World of Code projects, compared to approximately 21 million to men.
Another study conducted in 2016 observed several phenomena related to women’s participation in open-source software projects. The study found that women join the open-source software community later in their careers compared to men. Additionally, women tend to take on roles other than coding tasks. The rate of women’s participation also drops if they have children. Overall, the reasons women engage in software development communities and continue their involvement differ from those of men.
One of the most significant observations, confirmed by most studies on the topic, is that women’s participation in open-source software is significantly lower than in the commercial software industry. This phenomenon has persisted since the early days of open-source software and continues to this day.
While big tech companies’ involvement in open-source software has recently increased, this has not affected the percentage of women participating in these projects compared to their participation in commercial software.
The Consequences of the Low Participation of Women in Open-Source Software
The issue of low participation rates of women in the open-source software community and projects has two key dimensions. The first dimension relates to its impact on efforts to achieve gender equality and empower women by enhancing their participation in the information technology industry. The second dimension relates to the effect this has on the open-source software community itself, its potential for growth and innovation, and its role as a driving force in the information technology industry and society as a whole.
The Impact on Efforts to Achieve Gender Equality
Women face marginalization in the workforce across various industrial and service sectors. Aside from a limited number of job types that are socially considered more suitable for women, job opportunities are significantly reduced for them in most fields. The information technology sector is no exception. Although women played a prominent role in the early days of the software industry, this changed quickly as the critical importance of the industry became apparent.
Since the rise of information technology as a significant economic sector, many have hoped it would empower women in the digital world. However, these hopes diminished over time as the sector proved to be similar to other sectors in its tendency to marginalize women.
On the other hand, the open-source software movement introduced itself as an alternative to the traditional capitalist business model, promising a more open, diverse, and democratic environment for collaboration and participation. With its significant success in recent decades, it has grown in importance as a gateway for underrepresented groups, particularly women, to enter the information technology industry.
However, reality confirms that this gateway remains closed to women. This situation inevitably represents a significant barrier to progress in efforts to empower women in the information technology industry and, more broadly, in providing employment opportunities for women in general.
The Impact on the Development of Open-Source Software
Many studies have confirmed that gender diversity in teams leads to several positive outcomes, including higher performance rates and improved quality of production and organizational outputs. Diversity within teams also allows them to be more responsive to the needs and preferences of a broader range of end users. Studies have shown that gender-diverse teams maximize the potential of team members and have a greater competitive advantage, including reaching production stages earlier, increased efficiency, and higher-quality products.
Due to a lack of gender diversity, the open-source software community is missing opportunities to improve performance and competitiveness. Gender diversity brings numerous advantages, including a wider range of perspectives, skills, and problem-solving approaches. In contrast, commercial software has started to recognize and leverage the importance of gender diversity to enhance its development and competitive edge.
Open-source software also loses what’s more important than this by continuing to appear as a more discriminatory and marginalizing environment toward women than other sectors. Ultimately, the open-source software movement is built, above all, on a set of principles that it claims to represent—principles of openness, inclusivity, and democracy.
These principles clearly contradict the marginalization and discrimination against women and the creation of an environment that excludes them. This situation leads to a significant loss of credibility for the open-source software movement. As it continues, more talented women in the software field are turning away from contributing to open-source projects and shifting toward commercial software.
Challenges Facing Women’s Participation in Open-Source Software
Cultural Bias and Discrimination
Culturally inherited bias, which reproduces stereotypes about women’s lack of competence, especially in technology fields, leads to discriminatory practices against women. Members of society are raised in such a way that makes these discriminatory practices part of their personality formation, often leading them to act upon these practices.
This applies to all aspects of a society’s social, economic, and political life. It means that it affects women’s opportunities to work in any industrial or service sector. Consequently, it is expected that the open-source software community would reflect the biases and discrimination prevalent in the broader society. However, this does not explain the significantly higher and more evident levels of cultural bias and discrimination against women in the open-source software community compared to other workspaces.
Perhaps the closest model for comparison is the social interaction spaces provided by social media platforms. These spaces also experience higher-than-average levels of bias and discrimination against women, which manifests in the creation of a hostile and exclusionary environment for them. Since the mechanisms of interaction among participants in open-source software projects closely resemble those on social media platforms, it can be inferred that this pattern of interaction amplifies discrimination against women to a greater degree.
Balancing Daily Life Demands
It remains common in all societies today that a woman’s work outside the home does not exempt her from fulfilling the traditional social role of household caregiving. Therefore, achieving a balance between a woman’s work and the daily life responsibilities placed upon her is a challenge faced by the vast majority of working women in any field.
Participation in open-source software projects is mostly voluntary and unpaid, at least initially. As a result, the majority of participants contribute during their free time, alongside their regular jobs that provide them with a steady and reliable income.
Providing free time for a working woman is extremely challenging. Therefore, even with the ability and desire to participate, many women are unable to engage in open-source projects due to a lack of sufficient time. One study confirmed that women’s participation significantly decreases if they have children.
Barriers to integration into the open-source software developer community
Many open-source software projects lack organizational frameworks, particularly codes of conduct that govern social interactions among participants. This absence allows for practices that lead to the marginalization and exclusion of various groups, especially women, while also creating an uncomfortable environment for them.
Women are often ignored and not taken seriously in the open-source software developers’ community. This is evident in the dismissal of their contributions, the rejection of their work, and the insufficient consideration of their opinions in discussions. For example, a study comparing the acceptance rates of contributions from men and women in an open-source software community found that women’s contributions were accepted at a higher rate when their gender identity was not known.
This reveals that the process of reviewing contributions in open-source software projects lacks clear, objective criteria, which allows gender biases to influence the process. Therefore, the absence of organizational frameworks and clear policies is one of the primary barriers to integrating women into the open-source software community.
Benefits of Integrating Women into Open-Source Software Development
Improving Opportunities for Innovation and Development
The involvement of women in open-source software projects would provide these projects with the diverse perspectives necessary for innovation. Women can offer unique insights, ideas, and approaches, leading to the development of more creative and effective solutions. Additionally, increasing women’s participation in open-source software projects means access to a larger pool of talent to rely on, especially given the growing demand for skilled software developers.
In addition, the involvement of women in open-source software projects leads to products that are more representative of the user base. With the diversity of software users, having teams that reflect this diversity can improve product design and user experience, making the software more appealing and easier to use. In particular, gender-diverse teams are better equipped to respond to the needs and preferences of female users, helping to expand the software’s user base.
Education and Professional Development
Joining open-source software projects offers women, particularly beginners, opportunities for learning and professional growth that are difficult to come by in the commercial software industry. The openness of open-source software projects allows any software developer to participate without restrictions. The collaborative nature of open-source software development enables participants to learn from one another through discussions that present diverse perspectives and approaches.
Given the flexibility of open-source software projects, participants can develop their skills and expertise in multiple roles within the software production process using different programming languages and technologies. This is an opportunity typically unavailable through work in the commercial software industry.
For the reasons mentioned above, joining open-source software projects provides a unique gateway into the software industry and the opportunity to establish a successful career path. These opportunities can have a decisive impact on increasing women’s participation in the software industry in general.
Leadership and Empowerment
The increasing number of women involved in the open-source software community and projects leads to greater opportunities for women to assume leadership roles within these projects. This not only represents individual empowerment for these women but also positively impacts their empowerment within the open-source software community and the development potential and effectiveness of this community.
On one hand, women in leadership positions serve as role models for others, inspiring them to achieve similar successes. This helps attract more women into the open-source software community and lends greater credibility to the potential for women’s success and sustainability within the community. Having women in leadership also allows them to advocate for implementing organizational frameworks, such as codes of conduct and diversity and inclusion policies. This can significantly impact the integration and empowerment of more women within the open-source software community.
The more women in leadership positions, the greater their influence on the development processes of open-source software projects. This increases the effectiveness of diversity in these processes, as it ensures women’s more significant participation in decision-making, guiding project directions, and influencing the choice of aspects that receive more attention and focus.
This can help open-source software projects produce more effective software that better represents the target audience. In particular, it can make these software solutions more gender-sensitive, thereby increasing their appeal to female users. This, in turn, could expand the market reach of open-source software, especially in areas where it has not yet been able to compete significantly.
Ways to Integrate Women into the Field of Open-Source Software
Mentorship and Training Programs
Mentorship and training programs can play a fundamental role in supporting the integration of women into open-source software projects. These programs help women acquire the knowledge, skills, and experience they need to engage in open-source software projects successfully.
- (Outreachy): is a program that offers paid remote work opportunities for underrepresented groups in the software industry, particularly women. The program focuses on participating in open-source software projects, providing mentorship opportunities, and ensuring a safe, welcoming, and collaborative environment.
- (Women Who Code Open Source): is a branch of the “Women Who Code” initiative. It focuses on helping women participate in open-source software projects. The initiative provides mentorship and guidance, organizes events, and offers opportunities to encourage women to start engaging in open-source software.
- Google Summer of Code (GSoC): Although this initiative does not focus solely on women, it tries to integrate underrepresented groups in the open-source software community, including women. The initiative offers financial compensation to students, enabling them to work on open-source software projects while providing mentorship and guidance.
- Rails Girls: A global initiative aimed at helping women learn programming and participate in open-source software projects, particularly within the Ruby programming language community and the Rails framework.
- Girls Who Code: This initiative primarily teaches coding skills to young girls and encourages their participation in open-source software projects through events and competitions.
- Open Source Diversity: This initiative within the open-source software community aims to improve diversity and inclusivity. It provides resources, networking opportunities, and support for women and other underrepresented groups.
Inclusive Policies for Open-Source Software Projects
Open-source software projects can build a more welcoming community for women by developing and implementing inclusive policies encouraging more women to join these projects. The key features of successful inclusive policies include the following elements:
- Codes of conduct: These are rules for interaction among project participants that prohibit a range of unacceptable behaviors and establish mechanisms for filing complaints when such behaviors occur.
- Sponsorship and onboarding mechanisms: These are programs designed to help new participants become familiar with the technical and social aspects of open-source software projects. This makes joining these projects easier and removes the intimidation newcomers may feel, especially those with no previous experience participating in similar projects.
- Diversity Committees: These are working groups or committees formed to focus on inclusion and diversity and monitor the impact of efforts to increase diversity in the project. These committees can set goals for the percentage of women participating in the project and work towards achieving them, encourage participants to take on more prominent roles, and highlight the achievements of the participants.
Several large and well-known open-source software projects have established and implemented organizational policies to create a more welcoming and secure environment for participants, particularly women. Among these projects are:
- Linux Kernel: This open-source software project is responsible for the ongoing development of Linux’s core operating system. Since 2018, the project has adopted a code of conduct for its participants, including guidelines to ensure inclusive and respectful interactions for everyone.
- Python: The Python programming community working on developing the Python language adopts a diversity statement and actively works to make the language’s development more inclusive. Additionally, the community established PyLadies, a network for women involved in the project. PyLadies supports sponsorship, organizes workshops, and provides networking opportunities to help women participate in the project.
- Mozilla: This is the parent project overseeing several initiatives, primarily the development of the Firefox web browser. Mozilla has adopted a diversity and inclusion strategy to ensure fair representation in its projects. The project also implements participation guidelines that promote respectful and inclusive behavior. Additionally, Mozilla runs a program to train participants in building open-source software projects while keeping diversity and inclusion at the forefront.
- Drupal: To improve inclusivity within the Drupal community, the project has established a working group focused on diversity and inclusion. It emphasizes the importance of inclusivity in its code of conduct and actively addresses issues of harassment and bias. The project also holds discussions among its members on ways to improve diversity and support women participating in the initiative.
- Gnome: The open-source software project responsible for developing the most popular desktop applications among Linux distributions. The project adopts a code of conduct that fosters a friendly, harassment-free environment for all participants. The Gnome Foundation also supports initiatives like Outreachy, which aims to support underrepresented groups, including women, in increasing their participation in the project.
Supporting Community Networks
Community networks are an essential support tool. They are formed through voluntary connections among women with shared interests, such as working in the software field or participating in open-source software projects. Community networks provide spaces where women can exchange support, guidance, and mentorship.
This is primarily related to the technical aspects and, therefore, serves as an important resource for learning and professional development, especially since it focuses on specific challenges and provides previous personal experiences in dealing with and overcoming them. However, the importance of community networks extends beyond the technical aspects. These networks offer safe spaces where participants can seek advice and guidance regarding the social issues they face in the open-source software community.
Female participants in these networks can offer advice and guidance based on their personal experiences and real-life encounters in dealing with the challenges of interacting with open-source software projects and overcoming them. This provides participants with both moral and practical support, which can be crucial for some to continue participating rather than abandoning their involvement.
Many of the programs and initiatives previously mentioned serve as entry points for forming community networks for participants in open-source software projects. These networks also utilize social media platforms for communication and gathering. Supporting such networks’ existence, expansion, and effectiveness can be achieved by providing specialized platforms that offer resources and tools to enhance collaboration among participants, particularly in technical aspects.
Conclusion
Integrating women into the open-source software community and projects is crucial and impactful for gender equality efforts and the development and effectiveness of open-source software. While the current reality clearly indicates that the barriers to this integration outweigh the efforts to achieve it, there is great hope that the potential opportunities for this integration will help overcome its challenges.
This paper sought to address the issue of integrating women into the community and projects of open-source software by focusing on the interplay between challenges and opportunities. To this end, the first section examined the current reality of women’s participation in open-source software projects in terms of statistical figures and the consequences and outcomes.
The second section discussed the main challenges facing the integration of women into the open-source software community. The third section explored the significant opportunities that could arise if this integration is achieved. Finally, the paper, in its fourth section, discussed various approaches to efforts to support women’s integration into the community and projects of open-source software.