Out In The Open: The Crusade To Bring More Women To Open Source

Recent reports from Facebook and Google confirmed what we’ve known all along: the giants of tech have a diversity problem. But in the world of open source, the problem is even worse.  According to a survey conducted last year, only about 11 percent of open source contributors are women. Meanwhile, women account for 23 percent of all computer programmers and 39.5 percent of web developers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This is particularly worrying when you consider that tech companies often prefer hiring developers who have open-source experience—a preference that is only growing stronger. That means increasing diversity in open source will be key to increasing diversity in the tech industry as a whole. One of the most important ways to do that is to lower the barriers of entry to open source. And for the past five years, the non-profit organization OpenHatch has tried to do just that...