[Linux-aus] Ada Initiative Q&A support it?

[Mary Gardiner]

(Note the From: address. Use of that address in this thread should be
considered to be me speaking as an Ada Initiative founder rather than a LA
member or Council member to the extent that it's possible to separate them.)

Hi all,

Thanks for the discussion. And thank you to Linux Australia for the donation.

On Sun, Feb 27, 2011, Silvia Pfeiffer wrote:
> However, seeing as at least one founder of the Ada Initiative is a
> member of this community and is even a member on the council, it is
> probably time to share some of the thoughts and intentions behind the
> AI with the other members. It's better than some others on this list
> guessing what you may be doing and interpreting what you have written
> on the Website.

People might find three of the more detailed existing articles about us helpful
as well:
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3923936/Ada-Initiative-Supports-Women-in-Open-Source-Counters-Sexism.htm
http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/open-sauce/44970
http://lwn.net/Articles/428075/

I'm happy to answer mailing list questions but I'd like to note that the time I
currently have to spend on the Ada Initiative's launch is currently extremely
limited (less than a day every week) and fairly fully spoken for.  Valerie
Aurora is currently its full-time founder. Given that, I'd prefer that people
ask the questions first and I will answer them in one or two mails to the
extent that I can rather than begin (continue?) a back-and-forth thread.

If you have questions, send them to linux-aus or to me at this email address in
the next 48 hours (privately may be preferred due to list noise at this point)
and I'll post answers publicly to the list about a day after that. (So, around
about Wednesday.) I will identify the sender of each question.

Note that I'm unlikely to spend time answering questions asking me to prove the
existence of discrimination against women in either IT generally or open source
specifically, or to prove the value of having women in the community. I'd like
to produce some new material about this at some point, but there's an extensive
literature (see Kathy Reid's citations for a partial list) and I can't do the
proofs justice this week.

-Mary