Inequity in open source labor

Post-Open Source by Melody Horn

the free software movement was on occasion writing actually good software; corporations saw that and wanted to get in on it without having to actually have principles. so they embraced the nominal goals of the free software movement and extended it into a more corporate-friendly movement with a larger pile of software to draw from. the conventional step after embrace and extend is, naturally, extinguish. the free software movement died long ago, in no small part due to its own mistakes, so there's not much left to extinguish. that which is being extinguished, that which died with mozilla, is the idea that the open source movement could have any other principles than corporate exploitation.

The Dangers of Being Open by Amira Dalla

But what happens when only certain people are able to contribute to open projects and what happens when only certain people are able to access open resources? This means that the movement is not actually open to everyone and only obtainable by those who can practice and access it. In parts of the world being open can mean people will steal your ideas which could negatively impact your livelihood. In other parts, being open means that you are a target for harassment or violence which could result in physical and emotional abuse. From my experience, it has become more apparent over the years that being open is actually not obtainable to the masses. That being open is something of a privilege. That being open is actually elite.

The Ethics of Unpaid Labor and the OSS Community by Ashe Dryden

OSS contribution takes time; I don’t think anyone would contest that. Getting familiar with a project, finding out where you can fit into it, reading and responding to issues, testing and submitting patches, writing documentation. All of that requires a good deal of time. Marginalized people in tech - women, people of color, people with disabilities, LGBTQ people, and others - have less free time for a few major reasons: dependent care, domestic work and errands, and pay inequity.

Privilege, Communiy, and Open Source by Jessica Lord

Jessica Lord provides a very personal account of what she gave up to begin working in open source (and the privileges that allowed her to).

In order to learn JavaScript and contribute to open source (getting that GitHub portfolio) I had to work nearly constantly. Wednesday mornings were the same as Saturday nights. For me all that suffered was my DIY blog. What if I had a parent, partner or child that depended on me? What if I couldn't move across the country or afford to take such a risk with finances? This dramatically cuts the pool of potential down to those who have monetary resources and little or no dependent obligations.

Making a living at open source is still more rare than the norm. How do people who don’t already have enough work constantly for nothing?

Open Source Survey

In 2017, GitHub (in partnership with external researchers) surveyed 6,000 people who work on or with open source software. This survey provided a rare quantitative snapshot of gender and race in open source communities. The numbers indicate that people in open source are overwhelmingly white straight cis men.

The gender imbalance in open source remains profound: 95% of respondents are men; just 3% are women and 1% are non-binary. Women are about as likely as men (68% vs 73%) to say they are very interested in making future contributions, but less likely to say they are very likely to actually do so (45% vs 61%).

1% of respondents identify as transgender (including 9% of women in open source), and 7% identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, or another minority sexual orientation. 26% are immigrants (from and to anywhere in the world) and 16% are members of ethnic or national minorities in the country where they currently live.