Re: Code Of Conduct

[Tristan Van Berkom <tvb gnome org>]

Richard Stallman wrote:
>     So I would definitely agree that given an idea of contributing (code),
>     women will easily ask who will pay for it where men might not. Maybe
>     they consider open source more as "working" than as a hobby or a way
>     social networking or even as a way to educate oneself.
>
> Perhaps this is a consequence of presenting GNOME as an "open source"
> activity.  That term excludes the idealism of free software, and
> invites people to look at the matter in purely practical terms --
> which is what these women then do.
>
> Perhaps they would understand better why it's worth spending time
> unpaid on our campaign if you tell them that this is the Free Software
> Movement, and that the goal of our campaign is freedom for us and for
> everyone.

I definitly agree with this sentiment (as expressed in my earlier comment);
I wouldnt volunteer all kinds of hours and donate it to some organization
if I didnt believe in the cause; and ofcourse I wouldnt expect a woman to any
more than a man.

So upon recieving your mail, I went to the gnome.org face page and played
"newcommer", I followed "What is GNOME" and found myself at
http://gnome.org/about/ where it clearly states that:

===========================================
GNOME is Free Software and part of the GNU project, dedicated to giving users
and developers the ultimate level of control over their desktops, their software,
and their data. Find out more about the GNU project and Free Software at gnu.org.
===========================================

If the above statement is indeed true, I wonder where any misrepresentations
are, if they can be rectified and what can be done in general to improve
the overall interpretation of what the GNOME project is.

What have other free software projects done to clarify this point ?

Cheers,
                               -Tristan