Techno-Femenist View on the Open Source Software Development

2011 ◽  
pp. 1148-1153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuwei Lin
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Gender Gap ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Gender Issue ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
To Come

Current debate on women in free/libre open source software (FLOSS) tends to fall into the gender stereotype of men and women when coming across to the gender issue. This article stays away from a reductionism that simplifies the gender issue in the FLOSS community to the level of a fight between men and women. Instead of splitting women from men in the FLOSS development, this analysis helps motivate both men and women to work together, reduce the gender gap and improve the disadvantaged statuses of women and a wider users’ community in the FLOSS development. More importantly, it addresses not only the inequality that women face in computing, but also other inequalities that other users face, mainly emerging from the power relationships between expert and lay person (namely, developer and user) in software design. In so doing, the issue at stake is not only to create a welcome environment for women to join the FLOSS development, but also to come up with a better way of encouraging both sexes to collaborate with each other. This article starts from how FLOSS can make a difference for today’s information society, and present some successful stories of implementing FLOSS in developing countries and rural areas to empower women and the minority. Consequently, it discusses the problem of including more women and the minority in the FLOSS development through deconstructing the myth of the programming skill.

Techno-Feminist View on the Open Source Software Development

2008 ◽  
pp. 3365-3373 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuwei Lin
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Gender Gap ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Gender Issue ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
To Come

Current debate on women in free/libre open source software (FLOSS) tends to fall into the gender stereotype of men and women when coming across to the gender issue. This article stays away from a reductionism that simplifies the gender issue in the FLOSS community to the level of a fight between men and women. Instead of splitting women from men in the FLOSS development, this analysis helps motivate both men and women to work together, reduce the gender gap and improve the disadvantaged statuses of women and a wider users’ community in the FLOSS development. More importantly, it addresses not only the inequality that women face in computing, but also other inequalities that other users face, mainly emerging from the power relationships between expert and lay person (namely, developer and user) in software design. In so doing, the issue at stake is not only to create a welcome environment for women to join the FLOSS development, but also to come up with a better way of encouraging both sexes to collaborate with each other. This article starts from how FLOSS can make a difference for today’s information society, and present some successful stories of implementing FLOSS in developing countries and rural areas to empower women and the minority. Consequently, it discusses the problem of including more women and the minority in the FLOSS development through deconstructing the myth of the programming skill.

scholarly journals Will You Come Back to Contribute? Investigating the Inactivity of OSS Core Developers in GitHub

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio Calefato ◽  
Marco Aurelio Gerosa ◽  
Giuseppe Iaffaldano ◽  
Filippo Lanubile ◽  
Igor Fabio Steinmacher
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
State Transition ◽  
Active State ◽  
State Model ◽  
Novel Method ◽  
To Come ◽  
One Year ◽  
The Individual ◽  
To Receive

Abstract Several Open-Source Software (OSS) projects depend on the continuity of their development communities to remain sustainable. Understanding how developers become inactive or why they take breaks can help communities prevent abandonment and incentivize developers to come back. In this paper, we propose a novel method to identify developers’ inactive periods by analyzing the individual rhythm of contributions to the projects. Using this method, we quantitatively analyze the inactivity of core developers in 18 OSS organizations hosted on GitHub. We also survey core developers to receive their feedback about the identified breaks and transitions. Our results show that our method was effective for identifying developers’ breaks. About 94% of the surveyed core developers agreed with our state model of inactivity; 71% and 79% of them acknowledged their breaks and state transition, respectively. We also show that all core developers take breaks (at least once) and about a half of them (~ 45%) have completely disengaged from a project for at least one year. We also analyzed the probability of transitions to/from inactivity and found that developers who pause their activity have a ~ 35 to ~ 55% chance to return to an active state; yet, if the break lasts for a year or longer, then the probability of resuming activities drops to ~ 21–26%, with a ~ 54% chance of complete disengagement. These results may support the creation of policies and mechanisms to make OSS community managers aware of breaks and potential project abandonment.

Review of Open Source Software (OSS)

2012 ◽  
pp. 26-40
Author(s):  
Bhasker Mukerji ◽  
Ramaraj Palanisamy
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Source Code ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Economic Resources ◽  
Large Pool ◽  
Public Sector Organizations

The popularity of Open Source Software (OSS) in developing countries is quiet evident from its widespread adoption across government departments and public sector organizations. The use of OSS saves economic resources of cash starved countries, provides an opportunity to promote e-government, and to utilize their resources in other sectors. Many developing countries have a large pool of skilled developers who can modify the source code of the OSS at a very low cost. Many governments in developing and developed countries have switched to OSS which probably encourages others to follow the trend. It was not possible to follow the adoption trend in all the developing countries but the usage of OSS in countries like India, Brazil, and Venezuela provides us an insight. The successful adoption of OSS requires thorough analysis of its advantages as well as the issues associated with it. This chapter will provide an overview of OSS, characteristics of OSS developers, and their motivation to volunteer by contributing in OSS projects, followed by the advantages and issues associated with OSS.

Adoption of Open Source Software in Libraries in Developing Countries

2020 ◽  
pp. 520-531
Author(s):  
Josiline Phiri Chigwada
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Digital Libraries ◽  
Economic Cooperation ◽  
Electronic Information ◽  
Online Questionnaire ◽  
Modern Library ◽  
Training Programmes ◽  
The University

A survey on the adoption of open source software in libraries in developing countries was conducted. An online questionnaire was sent to Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) and Special Commonwealth Assistance for Africa (SCAAP) participants for the Advanced Certificate Course in Modern Library Practices and the Lib@web participants of the Management of Electronic Information and Digital Libraries programme at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. The ITEC/SCAAP programme is sponsored by Government of India while the Lib@web programme is sponsored by Flemish Interuniversity Council – Belgian Development Council (VLIR-OUS). The data was collected from 31 librarians who attended these training programmes. The findings revealed that most libraries in developing countries which sent participants to these programmes have adopted open source software. The author recommends that librarians should continue upgrading their skills so that they are conversant with how the various open source software can be used in their institutions.

“ICT Is for Boys”

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Erica Norstedt ◽  
Annika Andersson ◽  
Evylyn Pettersson ◽  
Simon Klintestrand
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Gender Gap ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Equal Opportunities ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
Ict Use ◽  
Information And Communication

There is worldwide consensus on how important women are for development where gender equality is seen as a prerequisite for sustainable development. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are seen as one of the most promising tools for the empowerment of women in developing countries. Men and women therefore need to have equal opportunities to access and use ICTs. Here, the authors, however, find a huge gender gap, and the reasons for this gap are still not fully understood or investigated. The purpose of this study is therefore to further investigate the reasons for this gap in ICT use. Based on a review of existing literature, as well as interviews with men and women from developing countries, the main finding is that the impeding factor underlying all barriers described in the literature relates to social norms. Based on this insight, the authors end the paper by discussing implications for research and practice.

scholarly journals A review of Open Source Software and Open Source Movement in Developing Countries

2011 ◽  
pp. 91-95
Author(s):  
Shyamalendu Kandar ◽  
Sourav Mondal ◽  
Palash Ray
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Source Code ◽  
Computer Software ◽  
Free Software ◽  
Commercial Software ◽  
Large Organization ◽  
Software License ◽  
Indian Perspective

Open-source software abbreviated as OSS is computer software that is available with source code and is provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, and improve the software. For the commercial software the source code and certain other rights are normally reserved for copyright holders,i.e. the company who developes the software. A group of people in a collaborative manner often developes the Open source software, not under the roof of a large organization. This strategy makes open source software cheap, reliable and modifiable if needed. In this context we shall discuss mainly the features of Open Source Software, differences of open source and free software and open source software movement in Indian perspective.

scholarly journals MoFlus: An Open-Source Android Software for Fluorescence-Based Point of Care

2022 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-48
Author(s):  
Panji Wisnu Wirawan ◽  
Adi Wibowo
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Point Of Care ◽  
Region Of Interest ◽  
High Sensitivity ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Dynamic Selection ◽  
Monitoring Tools ◽  
Color Data

High-sensitivity fluorescence-based tests are utilized to monitor various activities in life science research. These tests are specifically used as health monitoring tools to detect diseases. Fluorescence-based test facilities in rural areas and developing countries, however, remain limited. Point-of-care (POC) tests based on fluorescence detection have become a solution to the limitations of fluorescence-based tools in developing countries. POC software for smartphone cameras was generally developed for specific devices and tools, and it ability to select the desired region of interest (ROI) is limited. In this work, we developed Mobile Fluorescence Spectroscopy (MoFlus), an open-source Android software for camera-based POC. We mainly aimed to develop camera-based POC software that can be used for the dynamic selection of ROI; the number of samples; and the types of detection, color, data, and for communication with servers. MoFlus facilitated the use of touch screens and data given that it was developed on the basis of the SurfaceView library in Android and Javascript object notation applications. Moreover, the function and endurance of the app when used multiple times and with different numbers of images were tested.

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