I’d like to discuss more about barriers to accessibility in FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) projects.
Are there books and articles which you’ve seen that discuss this?
Personal experiences?
Strategies to support and remedy?
I’ll add more later, but some of the key elements are similar issues with plague STEM and the professional IT sector.
Better Allies is one book that talks about some of these issues in the IT Sector in general:
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/better-allies-everyday-actions-to-create-inclusive-engaging-workplaces_karen-catlin/20184971/#edition=21493438&idiq=41202309
I’ve read and had some great discussions, but haven’t actually read much. I think attention is only just really starting to sink in despite some significant pushes in recent here.
I’m curious to see how the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Open source survey the Linux Foundation is did turns out:
Hi CJ and thanks for opening up this crucial topic. I’d like to share my experience and some of my frustration so far with the tech side of things at SoFA (I love all other aspects of SoFA btw).
I choose not to have a Google login because -as you probably already know- Google is an evil top-down surveillance machine in the hands of the elites who will be able to control us through our data. This complicates a lot my access to SoFA documents and makes it difficult to fully contribute as a working member.
So I think finding opensource alternatives to Google is very important for SoFA and very urgent because the more we wait the more we lock-in to Google.
From what I’ve experienced open source programs have greatly evolved and there are no real barriers to their adoption. They may be slower (expecially if they have high levels of encryption like cryptpad) and have less functionalities than google, but the basic functionalities are there.
The main problems, I believe are:
- Google (and the like) have set new performance standards and our expectations have raised. We expect everything to be as “magic” as Google. It’s a “radical monopoly” Radical monopoly - Wikipedia
- Most people do not fully understand the importance of defending online privacy and oppose against surveillance. Centralized control technologies are the most important tool for perpetuation of oppression and the trend is becoming scarier everywhere. I come from a climate activist background and fully aware that surveillance is also the tool through which elites are going to perpetrate the extractivist model as collapse unfolds.
- I often hear about the need of being inclusive towards people who have less IT skills (expecially older people) and this seem to have become an unquestioned mantra. What I often experience is that these people are actually willing to try open source programs (actually any program, since they start from zero anyway) and actual resistance comes from younger & more techie people. Often the IT circle in organisation is resistant to FOSS because it’s more work, less magic etc…
- An additional problem with SoFA is that most of the work happen online so the need for efficient and reliable tools is paramount. I’ve experienced first hand how difficult it is to be secretary during a zoom call and I can totally understand the effort to lower barriers for people.
So…sorry, I did not really answer to your question about barriers. I think the transition to FOSS tools needs to be a value decision because there are always going to be performance barriers when you are competing with one of the richest companies in the world.