[00:00.660 --> 00:01.060]  Hi.
[00:02.720 --> 00:03.120]  Hello.
[00:03.480 --> 00:04.240]  Our slide's up great.
[00:04.720 --> 00:06.960]  Hi, I'm Molly and this is Deb.
[00:07.940 --> 00:10.000]  And I'm, wow, I really can't see anyone.
[00:10.080 --> 00:11.540]  I see what everyone was talking about before.
[00:12.880 --> 00:16.300]  I'm going to really quickly introduce Deb because I like to do that because I like Deb.
[00:16.700 --> 00:21.680]  I first met her when I was an intern at the Free Software Foundation and she was a campaigns manager there.
[00:22.620 --> 00:23.080]  Close enough.
[00:23.220 --> 00:23.860]  Something like that.
[00:24.980 --> 00:27.220]  And now it's five or six years later.
[00:27.540 --> 00:35.360]  So she was one of my mentors and now five or six years later, I'm on the board of the Open-Source Initiative and she runs some projects with us so I kind of get to be in charge of some things with Deb.
[00:36.400 --> 00:41.600]  She's in the Open Invention Network and recently I was part of an organization that was a member so she was in charge of some stuff I did.
[00:42.060 --> 00:45.640]  And we're both members of the Software Freedom Conservancy so we get to do some things together too.
[00:46.420 --> 00:46.680]  Yep.
[00:47.140 --> 00:52.220]  Molly is one of my favorite people to collaborate with so I'm really excited to be doing this talk with her.
[00:54.980 --> 00:55.600]  Let's see.
[00:55.800 --> 00:59.380]  Oh, so if you want, you can use this hashtag.
[00:59.980 --> 01:11.700]  for this talk so we can find tweets later or if, you know, like a week from now you think of something that you wish you had mentioned here or something, you can tweet at us and you can use this hashtag.
[01:11.860 --> 01:14.780]  I'm bacon and coconut and this is a millions.
[01:15.820 --> 01:26.320]  So, um, so the, uh, TLDR here is that, uh, we think the free software movement needs to be diverse and inclusive to be successful.
[01:26.700 --> 01:29.020]  And, uh, that that's, that's key.
[01:29.020 --> 01:33.360]  So if that's a thing you disagree with, then you might not be in the right place.
[01:34.220 --> 01:47.080]  Uh, what we're gonna cover is first why we care, uh, and then we're gonna talk a little bit about what's going on with age and then we're gonna discuss some of the solutions that we like to sort of fix some of the issues that are happening.
[01:48.080 --> 01:49.560]  So, why do we care?
[01:49.920 --> 01:52.200]  Well, you might have already guessed.
[01:52.480 --> 01:54.240]  Molly and I are big free software nerds.
[01:55.880 --> 01:56.720]  Oh, hooray!
[01:56.840 --> 01:57.600]  There's a whole room of them.
[01:57.820 --> 01:57.900]  Excellent.
[01:57.900 --> 01:59.220]  And neither of us are programmers.
[02:00.860 --> 02:01.260]  But, yeah.
[02:01.260 --> 02:01.840]  No, no cheers.
[02:02.060 --> 02:02.140]  Okay.
[02:02.720 --> 02:03.160]  Aww.
[02:04.640 --> 02:05.080]  Okay.
[02:05.400 --> 02:06.500]  The pity cheer, I guess.
[02:06.620 --> 02:06.760]  Sorry.
[02:08.600 --> 02:16.100]  Anyway, so, um, I, uh, my background is actually in, uh, different kinds of movements other than free software.
[02:16.100 --> 02:28.340]  And one of the things that a lot of movements do well is pass the torch from generation to generation and maintain sort of a common thread, uh, of, you know, the ideals of the movement.
[02:28.520 --> 02:32.480]  And so we'd like to see how we could do a better job of doing that in free software.
[02:33.540 --> 02:38.820]  And that means, uh, communicating the why of free software and not just the tools.
[02:38.820 --> 02:43.420]  Um, so the, for us, the free, the user freedom aspect is the most important.
[02:43.720 --> 02:51.320]  And that means, uh, you know, talking about the ideas, talking about the philosophy versus the development model.
[02:51.500 --> 02:58.460]  Uh, it's, it's great that collaborative, uh, work on version control produces free software.
[02:58.480 --> 03:00.700]  But it's not about the tools.
[03:00.900 --> 03:05.500]  It's about, uh, producing software that empowers users to be in charge of their computers.
[03:05.500 --> 03:06.960]  So that's what's important to us.
[03:07.140 --> 03:11.100]  So that's why we're talking about this as a movement and not a business plan.
[03:12.720 --> 03:21.820]  So, uh, oh, and, uh, what's interesting about the tools and the philosophies is, the philosophy is that they sort of feed each other like yeast.
[03:22.040 --> 03:30.740]  And so, um, there's a couple of other kind of nice hippie things that we like that also tend to, uh, work to help us build free software.
[03:30.740 --> 03:35.900]  So, like, transparency and shared decision-making and, uh, consensus-driven organizations.
[03:37.120 --> 03:42.560]  So, uh, that said, communities, of course, need to focus on people, especially if you're not paying them.
[03:43.040 --> 03:47.060]  Uh, you need to make sure that they're happy and that they're excited to be there.
[03:47.360 --> 03:51.500]  And, uh, feeling valued and appreciated for their, uh, participation.
[03:53.160 --> 03:59.120]  So, um, and then tell me when we get to, if you can jump in if I forget stuff.
[03:59.420 --> 04:01.820]  Uh, and then just to talk a little bit.
[04:01.840 --> 04:08.640]  So a lot of folks have been really banging the drum about diversity, which is not really the same thing as inclusivity.
[04:08.900 --> 04:15.500]  Like diversity, uh, is sort of like the idea of, uh, oh, look, it's an advertisement for pants.
[04:15.500 --> 04:19.060]  And we got a person from each race and isn't that nice.
[04:19.260 --> 04:24.280]  And it's like, yeah, well, you're selling pants and that's, that's not really the same.
[04:24.960 --> 04:37.860]  Um, inclusivity, I have been coming to prefer because it's more including the idea that everyone should feel welcome and that their, uh, that their participation is valued.
[04:39.580 --> 04:40.160]  What's...
[04:40.160 --> 04:41.120]  Oh, okay.
[04:41.280 --> 04:42.780]  Oh, can we have two mics?
[04:43.100 --> 04:43.480]  Yeah.
[04:43.480 --> 04:45.620]  Um, so...
[04:46.700 --> 04:55.020]  So this is, um, a lot of times we've been seeing folks sell the idea of diversity is like, oh, it makes smarter organizations.
[04:55.020 --> 04:56.920]  It makes better projects.
[04:57.300 --> 05:00.800]  It's, it's like, it's good for you, you know, like kale or something like that.
[05:00.980 --> 05:11.320]  And, um, which I, I like kale, but, um, you know, it's, some of the studies show that, uh, diversity makes people think about things differently.
[05:11.320 --> 05:16.720]  And when you present an idea to someone who's not like you, you tend to do a better job of preparing your arguments.
[05:17.020 --> 05:28.560]  Uh, and you also, um, we also find that people like to, are more likely to hear, uh, perspective that they disagree with from someone they don't perceive as being like them.
[05:28.980 --> 05:34.240]  So they, uh, it's kind of like they sort of, uh, suspect that there's something that they don't know.
[05:34.380 --> 05:35.600]  And so they're more willing to listen.
[05:36.560 --> 05:45.480]  So, um, that's, uh, you know, which is all good and helps you build a better organization, but you can't just have it be diverse.
[05:45.480 --> 05:49.200]  You want to make sure that you're really, uh, including people.
[05:49.440 --> 05:55.800]  So, um, to get right to the point, like tokenism is not helping you reap the benefits of a diverse organization.
[05:56.100 --> 05:58.780]  So if you have someone come in and you're like, oh, awesome.
[05:58.940 --> 06:03.020]  So we finally got like someone from a group that we don't have typically here.
[06:03.020 --> 06:12.100]  And then you have them like do some weird special project and they don't invite them to the meetings where important discussions are happening, then you're not really doing it.
[06:13.160 --> 06:29.260]  So, so we would advocate for, um, not just following the letter of your nondiscrimination policy or your, uh, you know, uh, whatever your company has in HR, but to really truly open your arms and welcome people.
[06:29.260 --> 06:43.280]  Uh, this is figuratively not, uh, don't hug people if they don't want to be hugged, but, um, you know, this means asking questions and listening to the answers and taking advice from all of your team members, uh, which of course means inviting them and including them to,
[06:43.600 --> 06:47.380]  you know, with the information and the meetings that they need to be a part of.
[06:48.380 --> 06:51.220]  So another way that you might think of this is shared power.
[06:51.460 --> 06:55.360]  So if you have an organization, yeah, well, it might look like that.
[06:55.800 --> 06:58.380]  Um, that's not my office.
[06:58.380 --> 07:15.480]  Um, it's, it's thinking that if, you know, if you can get involved in the project up to a certain point and then there's sort of this invisible glass ceiling of how far up you can go and how much power you can have within the organization.
[07:15.760 --> 07:25.880]  And then when you start to look at who has power and who doesn't, and you have like some of the same historical inequities being replicated within your project, then you have a problem.
[07:26.600 --> 07:32.480]  So, uh, and now Molly is going to talk about minorities in tech.
[07:32.740 --> 07:33.910]  Or what is intersectionality?
[07:35.220 --> 07:36.600]  Who is a minority in tech?
[07:36.860 --> 07:41.480]  I don't particularly like defining things by what they're not as opposed to what they are.
[07:41.660 --> 07:48.620]  However, in this particular case, it is much easier to define a minority in tech as someone who is not a heteronormative white man.
[07:48.820 --> 07:49.980]  This is true in the United States.
[07:50.220 --> 07:51.800]  I don't really know what it's like in other countries.
[07:51.980 --> 07:53.340]  So we're focusing on the United States.
[07:54.400 --> 08:03.520]  Um, to be a little bit more specific, this is a list of an incomplete list of some people who might be minorities, uh, within the sphere of technology.
[08:03.900 --> 08:05.860]  Um, there's genders.
[08:06.080 --> 08:08.100]  There are race, races and ethnicities.
[08:08.340 --> 08:14.440]  Uh, we added an asterisk there to remind us to mention that, you know, Deb and I are both pretty white.
[08:14.660 --> 08:17.120]  Um, and we feel pretty comfortable with that self-definition.
[08:17.400 --> 08:25.520]  Um, and we don't have experience, uh, being part of groups who are marginalized of, uh, because of their race or ethnicity.
[08:25.520 --> 08:30.160]  So we did a really good job trying to find the best terms we could to use.
[08:30.500 --> 08:32.020]  Um, so we hope these are okay.
[08:32.260 --> 08:35.340]  Uh, and if you have any suggestions for better ones, we're totally open to that.
[08:35.840 --> 08:44.560]  Uh, background is also meant to convey that there are things that we can't see about one another, uh, that really do cause us to be minorities in technical, uh, communities.
[08:45.520 --> 08:49.160]  Um, these can be things like having disabilities.
[08:49.580 --> 08:51.060]  Um, it can be things about your background.
[08:51.060 --> 08:59.520]  So if you come from a working class background, your parents weren't college educated, for example, um, not having a degree, uh, is another good one.
[09:00.040 --> 09:04.120]  Uh, men in general are, it is easier for them to still find jobs in technology.
[09:04.120 --> 09:07.280]  Even if they don't have degrees, that's less true for women or people of color.
[09:08.720 --> 09:12.080]  Um, and intersectionality, uh, sorry, just go back.
[09:12.180 --> 09:15.500]  So it's really easy for someone to fit into more than one of these categories.
[09:15.500 --> 09:27.120]  Um, and intersectionality is reminding us, it's this, it's this, um, uh, critical, critical analysis tool, I think.
[09:28.240 --> 09:29.780]  Uh, shouldn't have gotten in history there.
[09:30.520 --> 09:38.720]  Um, uh, about policies and mindsets and how that causes us to create culture, um, where that's homogenous, right?
[09:38.820 --> 09:50.100]  So when we want to find someone who fits into the culture we already have, we look around the room and we talk to each other and then we look at people who have come to visit us and we say, okay, so if you're hiring, for example, these are the people who've interviewed.
[09:50.720 --> 09:53.640]  And, you know, you know, John seems like a really good culture fit.
[09:53.720 --> 09:54.880]  Like, we really like John.
[09:55.060 --> 09:56.380]  We had a good time talking with John.
[09:56.580 --> 10:00.100]  And then at some point we realized that, you know, John is actually just like the rest of us already.
[10:00.580 --> 10:07.380]  Um, so these institutional mindsets are the things that cause us to continue to marginalize different groups.
[10:07.380 --> 10:13.160]  Um, and sometimes these groups, uh, have the same needs and sometimes they don't.
[10:13.300 --> 10:17.340]  Um, so in this particular case, we're going to be talking about ageism and age.
[10:17.440 --> 10:21.900]  And we need to remember that some of the things we're saying are really specific to people with age.
[10:22.000 --> 10:23.300]  Some of them are in general.
[10:23.480 --> 10:28.540]  And talking about one issue doesn't mean no one else also faces these things.
[10:30.640 --> 10:31.020]  So...
[10:31.020 --> 10:31.940]  What's going on with age?
[10:32.040 --> 10:33.060]  What is going on with age?
[10:33.080 --> 10:33.480]  What's going on with age?
[10:33.640 --> 10:34.760]  Tech has an age problem.
[10:34.940 --> 10:35.640]  Okay, that's what I wrote there.
[10:35.640 --> 10:35.900]  Yeah.
[10:36.360 --> 10:40.660]  Uh, when Mark Zuckerberg was in his early twenties, he said something he will probably never live down.
[10:40.860 --> 10:43.740]  Um, in 2007, he said that young people are smarter.
[10:45.140 --> 10:45.580]  Uh...
[10:45.580 --> 10:46.620]  And he's not young anymore.
[10:46.700 --> 10:47.540]  He's not young anymore.
[10:47.800 --> 10:49.900]  I think he's like 30 now or something.
[10:50.040 --> 10:50.540]  He's kind of old.
[10:51.840 --> 10:52.280]  Um...
[10:52.280 --> 10:55.780]  Uh, this was in the semi-early days of Facebook, uh, 2007.
[10:56.580 --> 11:05.980]  Um, and what's really powerful about this is it's a statement from a younger person, uh, about where he thinks the intelligence and the power in the tech sector is coming from.
[11:06.540 --> 11:09.020]  Uh, Mark isn't the only person who thought this, actually.
[11:09.760 --> 11:12.080]  Uh, Vinod Khashal, he's an entrepreneur, entrepreneur.
[11:12.620 --> 11:13.880]  Um, he's 56.
[11:14.040 --> 11:15.460]  And he also has the same idea.
[11:15.680 --> 11:23.280]  That really, if you want to find something good happening in technology, if you want to find innovation and people driving things forward, you're going to be looking at people who are younger.
[11:23.280 --> 11:32.820]  You know, if you think about, okay, so maybe you're in your early 20s, Facebook, 2004, early 20s, like maybe 20, ending by 35.
[11:32.820 --> 11:36.740]  You have 15 years to be a good contributor to the tech community.
[11:37.260 --> 11:39.000]  Doesn't sound like a lot of time to me.
[11:39.280 --> 11:43.600]  And it's, I think it's worth noting that that's also, it's a chicken-egg situation.
[11:43.600 --> 11:57.180]  So if funders think that people under 35 are the innovators and then they're funding them, then all of the examples of innovators that they are aware of are people they've funded, then it's, it's, it's weird.
[11:57.360 --> 12:06.260]  It's that they're funding the people that they think they should be funding, but they don't have any evidence that it could work the other way.
[12:06.260 --> 12:06.940]  Yes.
[12:08.220 --> 12:11.860]  Maybe Y Combinator should start a special project for people over the age of 35.
[12:13.540 --> 12:18.980]  Anyway, the age problem in tech isn't just limited to what individuals are saying.
[12:19.820 --> 12:27.000]  In 2011, well, Brian, Brian Reed was a, was employed at Google in a technical capacity.
[12:27.000 --> 12:31.060]  I believe he was 54, I'm not positive, when he was fired.
[12:32.020 --> 12:38.160]  So he sued them because people had been saying some not nice things to him over his time there.
[12:38.580 --> 12:45.320]  And they really called out his age and used that to critique and criticize his actions, things he were saying, or his ideas.
[12:46.740 --> 12:49.900]  Google isn't the only person who has had a problem with an employee in general.
[12:50.380 --> 12:52.960]  Another really good place to look for that is hiring practice.
[12:52.960 --> 13:07.100]  If you look at job descriptions, you will see jobs for new graduates that are really like places to get new people involved in a company for the first time and help them identify themselves and become comfortable as tech professionals.
[13:07.500 --> 13:11.640]  But you'll also see people who are just looking to hire young and using that as an excuse.
[13:13.340 --> 13:21.700]  One particular thing I like is the Facebook selling a case where they were looking for an attorney from class of 2007 or 2008.
[13:21.880 --> 13:26.860]  So they really weren't looking for anyone who had high experience who had been older.
[13:28.700 --> 13:33.200]  Here are some numbers that I found from payscale.com.
[13:33.200 --> 13:38.820]  These are median ages of people as of 2012 within tech companies.
[13:39.000 --> 13:40.280]  These are just some of the big tech companies.
[13:40.860 --> 13:42.480]  Facebook, the median age was 26.
[13:43.220 --> 13:45.960]  I can't see you, but if you're over the age of 26, hi.
[13:47.020 --> 13:47.980]  Google was 29.
[13:48.020 --> 13:50.160]  If you're over the age of 29, hi.
[13:51.100 --> 13:52.840]  And Apple and NVIDIA were at 31.
[13:53.280 --> 13:55.780]  I think NVIDIA is kind of funny, so that's why I included that one.
[13:57.120 --> 14:03.960]  On the higher end of the median ages, you have IBM at 37, Oracle at 38, and HP at 39.
[14:04.300 --> 14:21.160]  This is really important in the context that, according to fortune.com, the median age of the American worker was 42 during 2012.
[14:22.480 --> 14:34.420]  Something else that I also think is kind of cool is the median number of hours worked at Facebook per week is 9 to 10, at least according to some anecdotal Google searching, around...
[14:34.420 --> 14:34.940]  Per day.
[14:35.160 --> 14:38.600]  Per day, around like Glassdoor and things like that, and Quora.
[14:38.880 --> 14:41.120]  While at HP, it's like seven and a half.
[14:42.000 --> 14:45.120]  So maybe that's why they want to hire all those young people.
[14:45.520 --> 14:45.960]  Free work?
[14:46.400 --> 14:46.680]  Oh.
[14:47.200 --> 14:47.720]  Great.
[14:48.540 --> 14:54.520]  So the way we treat older and younger people in our communities is often based on assumptions.
[14:54.760 --> 14:59.040]  And we get a lot of those ideas and things from popular culture.
[14:59.780 --> 15:06.540]  Of course, some of those assumptions are pretty different when we talk about young people and old people.
[15:06.700 --> 15:09.220]  But we're going to talk about young people first.
[15:11.580 --> 15:12.840]  So, I think...
[15:12.840 --> 15:13.280]  This is me.
[15:13.400 --> 15:13.900]  This is you.
[15:14.120 --> 15:14.380]  This is me.
[15:14.560 --> 15:14.780]  Yes.
[15:14.780 --> 15:15.620]  I'm talking about young people.
[15:15.820 --> 15:16.080]  Awesome.
[15:16.720 --> 15:17.240]  Molly's young.
[15:18.420 --> 15:19.820]  Do you say I'm young?
[15:19.980 --> 15:20.260]  Yeah.
[15:20.700 --> 15:21.420]  You're not Facebook.
[15:21.420 --> 15:24.360]  I am not 35 yet, but I am too old to work at Facebook.
[15:26.760 --> 15:27.580]  Sorry, Facebook.
[15:29.480 --> 15:30.360]  They're missing out.
[15:30.560 --> 15:30.720]  Great.
[15:31.020 --> 15:34.340]  When we're talking about young people, we're actually talking about two different groups.
[15:34.680 --> 15:37.880]  We are talking about people who are not yet of working age.
[15:37.880 --> 15:50.180]  That can either mean someone who hasn't graduated, hasn't finished schooling, university, or someone who is still in high school if you're thinking of a working age being closer to 18 or 19.
[15:50.800 --> 15:59.220]  Though we're also going to be talking about people who are... who have already finished their education, who are of working age, but are at early stages in their careers.
[15:59.920 --> 16:00.880]  And these are...
[16:00.880 --> 16:06.280]  We have the Kool-Aid man there because, you know, these are all people who we really need to get involved with free and open-source software.
[16:06.280 --> 16:10.480]  We need to think about them and we need to make sure that they become part of the movement in the community.
[16:10.720 --> 16:12.180]  And drink the free software Kool-Aid.
[16:12.380 --> 16:13.260]  And drink the free software Kool-Aid.
[16:14.660 --> 16:15.060]  Cool.
[16:15.420 --> 16:15.820]  So...
[16:15.820 --> 16:16.820]  Young ones.
[16:18.380 --> 16:18.780]  Great.
[16:19.380 --> 16:19.840]  Oh.
[16:20.020 --> 16:20.360]  Yeah.
[16:20.600 --> 16:20.900]  So...
[16:21.380 --> 16:33.340]  We kind of touched on this with the hours per day, but Silicon Valley really loves to recruit recent grads even, you know, like we said, going so far as to say which, you know, class of 2015 or 2016 preferred.
[16:33.620 --> 16:42.380]  And the reason for this is that they can set expectations of long hours, take what you need vacation, which like socially often works out to almost no vacation.
[16:43.340 --> 16:51.380]  And basically thinking of the workplace as your home by encouraging people to eat there, use it as their living room, get their laundry done there.
[16:51.580 --> 16:56.760]  After a few years, people burn out and then the next new batch of recruits is brought in.
[16:56.760 --> 17:00.540]  So this means that people are not, they're not having any free time.
[17:00.700 --> 17:02.300]  They don't have time to contribute to free software.
[17:03.640 --> 17:10.640]  And even if they are working on a free software job, it might not be contextualized as part of the ethos of free software.
[17:12.140 --> 17:12.540]  Great.
[17:13.360 --> 17:17.220]  I can't see your hands, but we'll get to that later.
[17:17.700 --> 17:20.380]  If you want to, feel free to raise your hand and I'll pretend I see it.
[17:20.620 --> 17:27.560]  If you are or have been actively involved in free and open-source software, either the movement as a whole or a project.
[17:27.820 --> 17:29.140]  This could mean you're running something.
[17:29.280 --> 17:36.780]  This could mean you're contributing, you're writing code, you're going to events, or you're actually just hanging around talking to people about how great you think free and open-source software is.
[17:37.440 --> 17:37.760]  Hands up.
[17:37.860 --> 17:38.600]  Yeah, I see some hands.
[17:38.600 --> 17:39.880]  I totally see some hands.
[17:40.000 --> 17:40.260]  That's great.
[17:40.780 --> 17:41.000]  Okay.
[17:41.520 --> 17:42.500]  Now, how...
[17:42.500 --> 17:43.080]  Keep them up.
[17:43.380 --> 17:44.500]  It's arm exercise time.
[17:45.420 --> 17:45.820]  Okay.
[17:45.980 --> 17:54.560]  So if you were involved in doing things by the time you were in college.
[17:55.400 --> 18:01.160]  So like from college through the end of college, any time in there where you were still involved.
[18:01.360 --> 18:01.560]  Okay.
[18:01.780 --> 18:03.580]  How many of you were involved before college?
[18:04.740 --> 18:06.620]  Wow, that is a lot of hands.
[18:06.960 --> 18:07.280]  Okay.
[18:07.500 --> 18:09.060]  How many of you guys are Wesley Crusher?
[18:11.260 --> 18:11.700]  Anyone?
[18:12.000 --> 18:12.260]  Okay.
[18:12.560 --> 18:16.040]  Because I at least know several people who were that kid.
[18:16.240 --> 18:23.120]  The one who when they were like really little, got a computer from their parents, and then they installed GNU Linux on their own and they were really proud of themselves.
[18:23.620 --> 18:25.440]  And they were playing around in Unix environments.
[18:26.720 --> 18:31.540]  And, and you know, they were submitting code to projects or going to meetups when they were in middle school.
[18:32.300 --> 18:35.300]  This is maybe more relevant now than it was for other people.
[18:35.400 --> 18:37.840]  But by high school, they were like core contributors of projects.
[18:37.960 --> 18:41.160]  Someone was a DD before they went to college for all you Debian fans out there.
[18:41.160 --> 18:41.940]  Yeah.
[18:42.140 --> 18:44.080]  I don't really want to talk about you right now.
[18:44.200 --> 18:47.520]  Um, because you're great and I like you and I know you.
[18:47.960 --> 18:55.140]  Um, and I think it's really great that there are people as empowered as you who found ways or found people to help you get involved in those communities.
[18:55.640 --> 19:03.000]  Um, but there's also this whole category of everybody else who's young, uh, but who's not that quite there themselves.
[19:03.320 --> 19:05.320]  Um, this is the Gryffindor Quidditch team.
[19:05.500 --> 19:07.060]  Harry Potter is near and dear to my heart.
[19:07.840 --> 19:11.140]  Um, Quidditch is the sport of choice among wizards.
[19:11.160 --> 19:12.120]  In the Harry Potter books.
[19:12.500 --> 19:15.060]  Uh, there's Harry in the top corner.
[19:15.640 --> 19:21.640]  Um, Harry, uh, first started playing Quidditch and was magically, wonderfully, amazingly good at it.
[19:21.880 --> 19:22.660]  No one else was.
[19:22.780 --> 19:24.840]  They all had to start working from a younger age.
[19:24.980 --> 19:29.520]  They all had to have people kind of come up to them and help them to teach them how to play.
[19:29.700 --> 19:31.140]  They needed to be encouraged.
[19:31.560 --> 19:36.580]  Uh, so when we're looking at most young people, we're really thinking about who needs to be encouraged, right?
[19:36.640 --> 19:37.300]  So what do they need?
[19:37.500 --> 19:39.600]  How do these people become hackers, right?
[19:39.600 --> 19:42.420]  So the first thing that you need to become a hacker is you need a handle.
[19:42.700 --> 19:44.400]  Because without a handle, you don't have an identity.
[19:48.170 --> 19:49.930]  But once you have that, you actually...
[19:49.930 --> 19:54.930]  So, so for those of you who've seen Hackers and those of you who haven't, Joey's an amazing character.
[19:55.270 --> 20:01.890]  Uh, and one of my favorite things about him actually, he's, he has such a great mentor network of people who are totally jerks to him.
[20:02.550 --> 20:04.890]  But they, you know, they think about what he needs.
[20:05.030 --> 20:08.210]  They, they really, they're like, okay, so what can, what kind of advice can we give him?
[20:08.490 --> 20:10.610]  You know, we can tell him when he's being universally stupid.
[20:10.870 --> 20:15.230]  But we can also help him understand how to really become a good hacker and do a righteous hack.
[20:16.310 --> 20:22.550]  Um, so, so, uh, all right.
[20:23.250 --> 20:25.430]  Um, so people need all of those things.
[20:25.690 --> 20:36.110]  Uh, and as a community, it is our job to make sure that there are spaces for younger people, uh, to have that support and to have that encouragement and to have people there to help them out.
[20:36.810 --> 20:49.650]  Um, uh, something else that you'll see, uh, in free and open-source projects, um, is you'll either have projects using tools that aren't being taught in school or that people aren't having a lot of easy interaction with ahead of time.
[20:50.190 --> 20:53.690]  Um, get for, I think it's a good example of this.
[20:53.830 --> 20:56.790]  Um, we didn't put a subversion one up, but I'll get to that in just a second.
[20:56.830 --> 21:00.950]  So this is not a version control religious lines here.
[21:01.330 --> 21:12.750]  Um, but so one thing that gets been doing, uh, or GitHub has been doing is they've been doing a lot of outreach, uh, to get people at universities learning about, uh, learning about Git and getting comfortable with those tools.
[21:13.250 --> 21:22.030]  Um, the other thing that you'll see is there'll be projects that use these older tools that no one else is using anymore or that fewer people are using.
[21:22.150 --> 21:23.070]  I love IRC.
[21:23.190 --> 21:24.670]  I use IRC every day.
[21:24.810 --> 21:29.490]  I suspect somebody is, is, uh, commenting to me on IRC right now.
[21:29.810 --> 21:33.870]  Uh, but a lot of other people are actually just kind of scared of it.
[21:33.990 --> 21:35.890]  Uh, and the same thing is true for subversion.
[21:37.810 --> 21:40.490]  So we've talked about young, now we're gonna talk about the olds.
[21:41.350 --> 21:46.990]  Um, as, uh, Biella mentioned yesterday, culture really impacts what we think and what kinds of assumptions we make.
[21:47.110 --> 21:52.650]  And so I spent some time last year looking at the way that, uh, older women are portrayed on TV.
[21:52.850 --> 21:59.590]  And in particular, looking at the, uh, paucity of older women who are portrayed as technical on TV.
[22:00.010 --> 22:05.050]  Uh, I had a really hard time finding women over 40 that touched a computer at all.
[22:05.050 --> 22:14.590]  Um, and of the four women that I found that were portrayed as technical on TV, two are from franchises where they sort of aged up with the franchise.
[22:14.910 --> 22:23.930]  So they started when they were younger and then, like, uh, Samantha Carter from Stargate and Lieutenant Uhura from Star Trek, like, they just kept making those shows.
[22:23.930 --> 22:28.870]  And so they didn't replace them, but nobody ever said, like, oh, you know what we should do?
[22:28.950 --> 22:31.890]  We should have, like, an older woman as a technical character.
[22:31.890 --> 22:41.750]  Um, the other two, uh, women that I was able to find on, uh, TV that were technical were in a technical slash management role.
[22:41.890 --> 22:50.450]  So we had, uh, Nina Sharp from Fringe and then, uh, Avery Ryan, which if you haven't watched CSI Cyber, not that I recommend you watch CSI Cyber.
[22:50.450 --> 23:01.750]  Um, it is Patricia Arquette's character and she's sort of a manager slash technical, uh, uh, it's, you see how far down I had to dig to find technical women on TV.
[23:02.510 --> 23:11.270]  Um, so, uh, you know, this, this influences the mindset and people's ideas about what older women are capable of.
[23:11.430 --> 23:15.850]  It's hard for people to picture women in a technical role because we almost never see it.
[23:15.850 --> 23:28.930]  Uh, so, this is, uh, after I started looking at the way that, or the way that we don't portray older women as technical, I did a number of interviews with actual older women who are technical.
[23:29.410 --> 23:32.370]  And, uh, and they had some very interesting things to say.
[23:32.610 --> 23:44.390]  Uh, this woman said, you know, she's, she's a 57-year-old, uh, systems administrator in the Valley and she said, discriminating against older workers is the one kind of discrimination that seems to be socially acceptable.
[23:44.750 --> 23:49.110]  You have to really work hard to not hire anyone over 30, but just about every startup does it.
[23:49.910 --> 23:53.670]  Um, and this is, uh, you know, this is like, oops, sorry.
[23:54.030 --> 23:59.850]  Um, this is at a time when, uh, a lot of companies are loudly complaining that they can't get enough coders.
[23:59.970 --> 24:01.610]  They can't get enough technical employees.
[24:01.790 --> 24:09.930]  Like they're poaching each other's employees and, uh, working really hard to sell their company as like the funnest and the best place to work.
[24:10.130 --> 24:19.570]  And, you know, if the LinkedIn spam I get is any indication, like, you know, they're really looking for anybody who's got like the word Linux or, or code in their profile.
[24:19.790 --> 24:30.490]  And so, you know, as an older woman, she's going in and getting situations where, you know, she sits down, the person who's supposed to interview her comes in, like looks and is like, oh my God, are you kidding me?
[24:30.690 --> 24:31.710]  And then walks away.
[24:32.350 --> 24:34.710]  So that, that kind of thing is happening.
[24:34.710 --> 24:39.930]  So, it's, um, you know, we're, it's, it's for real.
[24:40.170 --> 24:47.710]  It's really, it's hard to get a job, uh, even in this time where we don't have enough people to do the work that companies want to pay people to do.
[24:48.390 --> 24:55.870]  Uh, another thing that happens is that, uh, a lot of the older women I've spoken to over the years have gone ahead and moved out of tech.
[24:56.010 --> 24:57.990]  They're like, yep, too old for this shit.
[24:58.310 --> 25:13.770]  So, uh, you know, they, they found themselves either like putting up with a lot of, you know, silliness or, uh, you know, just outright discrimination or they kind of like found themselves not being, uh, you know, included in technical decision-making processes.
[25:14.030 --> 25:17.050]  And so, uh, it's not that they're going off to raise families.
[25:17.070 --> 25:20.330]  It's that they're just like, nope, I cannot put up with this.
[25:20.990 --> 25:25.170]  Um, so, and some of this is due to age and some of this is due to gender.
[25:25.170 --> 25:29.450]  Like I said, it kind of the intersectional, um, thing that happens.
[25:30.010 --> 25:36.210]  They, it's sort of, yeah, they interact in a way that's, uh, that adds up to a lot of bullshit.
[25:37.270 --> 25:43.650]  Um, so, uh, and then this is another, um, woman that I spoke to who works as a software engineer at a big data company.
[25:43.810 --> 25:55.750]  And she said that she found herself, she was staying in tech, but found herself, uh, basically like kind of, uh, asked, being asked to mentor younger people instead of work on her own projects.
[25:56.450 --> 26:03.970]  So, it's not, um, it's not, it's not so surprising that, um, people are leaving when they get to a certain age.
[26:04.110 --> 26:17.030]  If you're, um, you know, if you don't want to go into management and you don't want to just mentor new people, uh, to, you know, to do the work that you would rather be doing, uh, then it's not surprising that you decide to leave eventually.
[26:18.210 --> 26:21.610]  So, I think, ah, cool.
[26:21.790 --> 26:22.850]  I'm gonna talk about volunteers.
[26:23.790 --> 26:28.190]  Uh, free software is powered by volunteers, especially non-technical roles.
[26:28.870 --> 26:37.250]  Um, although the number of people getting paid to work on free software, the number of companies producing for-profit free software projects is increasing.
[26:37.950 --> 26:50.990]  Um, the majority of the momentum the free software movement has, uh, a lot of the good efforts that have happened have come through countless volunteer hours from really dedicated, wonderful people.
[26:52.010 --> 26:53.050]  Um, great.
[26:53.230 --> 26:54.930]  So, let's talk about volunteering.
[26:55.990 --> 26:56.630]  Uh, just scroll down.
[26:56.830 --> 26:57.170]  Great.
[26:57.810 --> 26:58.330]  Cool.
[26:58.850 --> 27:01.910]  Uh, volunteering is a highly intergenerational activity.
[27:02.310 --> 27:05.750]  Um, and you have two groups that especially do a whole lot of it.
[27:05.910 --> 27:10.650]  You have younger people, uh, generally students, uh, both those before and during university.
[27:10.650 --> 27:12.950]  And then you have people over the age of 65.
[27:14.050 --> 27:15.990]  Uh, for- here's some stuff on the youths.
[27:16.090 --> 27:18.350]  More than half of youths are volunteering.
[27:18.790 --> 27:21.090]  Um, it's about 29 hours per year.
[27:21.250 --> 27:23.910]  Uh, that's over the entire group of youths.
[27:24.430 --> 27:31.290]  Um, uh, 64% of them are doing so in organizations geared towards youth volunteers or religious organizations.
[27:31.290 --> 27:37.410]  So, this can be something like, we're going to get kids in high school to go read to younger children in hospitals.
[27:37.770 --> 27:41.230]  Or, oh, well, the church is going to be doing this mission together.
[27:42.050 --> 27:47.190]  Um, a number of these people have volunteer hours required of them.
[27:47.570 --> 27:52.330]  Uh, especially for- to finish, uh, uh, high school.
[27:52.510 --> 27:53.710]  They have community service requirements.
[27:54.250 --> 28:00.490]  Um, the final little, uh, bit there was from, uh, collegeconfidential.com.
[28:00.490 --> 28:03.690]  It was a comment by somebody who claimed to be an Ivy League admissions officer.
[28:03.910 --> 28:08.370]  Uh, when asked about how many community service hours someone had, they said, I have- I have 250.
[28:08.570 --> 28:09.090]  Is that enough?
[28:09.430 --> 28:13.430]  And they said, well, you know, it's not impressive, but it's laudable.
[28:15.590 --> 28:17.250]  That's a lot of hours over four years.
[28:17.810 --> 28:36.070]  Um, so the- the 55% is, uh, interesting and taking into account with this 42% of people over the age of 65, when you look at overall, actually about, like, 20 to 30% of adults, people between the ages of 18 and 65, uh, volunteer based on kind of which little section of them you want to take.
[28:36.430 --> 28:39.950]  So, uh, 55 and 42% are actually, like, pretty significant numbers.
[28:40.390 --> 28:44.250]  Um, so people who are over age 65 volunteer.
[28:44.390 --> 28:45.330]  They volunteer a lot more.
[28:45.770 --> 28:47.430]  Um, 96 hours per year.
[28:47.530 --> 28:48.790]  That's about two hours per week.
[28:49.530 --> 28:53.150]  Um, uh, many of them are still in religious organizations.
[28:53.550 --> 28:57.550]  Uh, uh, but there are plenty of them who are outside of religious organizations.
[28:57.550 --> 29:12.190]  Um, one of the metrics we look at when we talk about volunteers, or when people who talk about volunteers talk about volunteers, uh, is how many people in that demographic are spending more than 500 hours a year on an organization.
[29:12.530 --> 29:20.550]  Um, and it turns out that of that particular group, uh, 10% of elderly volunteers meet that requirement.
[29:20.690 --> 29:21.230]  And that's huge.
[29:21.230 --> 29:24.970]  That's like, uh, that just leagues above everyone else.
[29:25.530 --> 29:35.590]  Um, elderly volunteers are given pretty good reps, uh, by people who have done reports on, like, different volunteering, uh, uh, programs and their successes.
[29:35.950 --> 29:37.440]  A lot of them don't have commitments.
[29:37.810 --> 29:43.750]  Um, uh, like the kind of work commitments or school commitments that students have or other adults have.
[29:44.250 --> 29:50.970]  Um, they find that they're usually really interested in finding a cause and an organization that they can dedicate themselves to and put time and energy into.
[29:51.670 --> 30:00.850]  Um, and they're one of the, it's, this is one of those many cases where they're bringing in another set of perspectives, another set of skills, and another set of knowledge that the organizations don't really have otherwise.
[30:02.250 --> 30:06.610]  Uh, this is, uh, some successful organizations that we really like.
[30:06.790 --> 30:09.550]  Things that we like about them are that they're very intergenerational.
[30:09.750 --> 30:11.890]  Um, age isn't a problem for them, right?
[30:11.890 --> 30:14.590]  Uh, it's a point of diversity through which they thrive.
[30:15.050 --> 30:16.690]  Um, and age doesn't have to be a problem for us either.
[30:17.270 --> 30:18.290]  Uh, a few quick notes.
[30:18.470 --> 30:28.410]  Um, Girls Rock Campaign Boston is a Boston-based organization where girls, uh, learn, they learn about music and they become empowered through writing and performing music together.
[30:29.070 --> 30:31.870]  Uh, mentors for that are people who are 18 straight up through retired ages.
[30:32.470 --> 30:37.030]  Um, that cool eight-pointed star thing is the Quaker symbol.
[30:37.030 --> 30:43.530]  Um, so Quakers and Unitarians are two religious organizations that are, uh, very intergenerational.
[30:43.650 --> 30:55.470]  Um, there have been a number of studies done on both of them and how their intergenerational nature has led them to have really amazing results, especially in volunteer work, but in general in creating, like, demonstrable results.
[30:55.750 --> 30:58.070]  A Habitat for Humanity builds houses.
[30:58.370 --> 31:09.850]  Um, something that I think is really interesting about Habitat for Humanity is they take volunteers who are high school students and they take volunteers who are adults and retirees, and they like, do programs for a family to go together to build something.
[31:11.270 --> 31:18.170]  Oh, and, uh, and lastly, like, political campaigns tend to also be really good at bringing people in from, uh, all different age groups.
[31:18.470 --> 31:25.150]  In particular, uh, it seems like political campaigns attract people who are interested in the history of political campaigns.
[31:25.750 --> 31:38.370]  And so, it's, instead of being like, oh, I have to sit and stuff envelopes with the old person, they're like, oh, sweet, I get to hear all the stories from the old person that I'm gonna, like, stuff envelopes with, which works out really great, um, for,
[31:38.590 --> 31:40.990]  uh, for those organizations that need envelopes stuffed.
[31:42.730 --> 31:44.810]  I don't, I think people still do that, right?
[31:45.110 --> 31:46.050]  The FSF does.
[31:46.250 --> 31:47.150]  We, uh, okay.
[31:49.410 --> 31:52.790]  If you're in Boston and need some volunteer hours, come to the FSF.
[31:53.770 --> 32:01.050]  Um, so, in general, uh, like, the point of this section is that, uh, younger people and older people like to use their time to do good.
[32:01.250 --> 32:05.570]  So, there's a lot of untapped potential there for the FSF movement.
[32:06.410 --> 32:09.610]  So, now we're gonna talk about some of the solutions that we like.
[32:10.250 --> 32:21.190]  And, um, again, like I said, we wanna, we wanna see a movement where, um, older people with experience can pass the torch to the younger generations while empowering them to really make the movement their own.
[32:21.190 --> 32:25.430]  And I don't think we have to make distinctions where young people are post-open-source.
[32:25.730 --> 32:30.050]  Uh, but we also don't need to put a small handful of older people on a pedestal.
[32:30.230 --> 32:40.890]  Um, we see this in our communities a lot where we have a couple of, we do, this is not the kind of old people we're talking about where, um, people look to them for advice on all kinds of stuff that they're not even expert in.
[32:40.970 --> 32:44.010]  And I'm not naming any names because I don't need that kind of hate from the Internet.
[32:44.370 --> 32:49.550]  But I'd like to see a situation where young people and old people work together inform each other's work.
[32:50.010 --> 32:59.170]  And they take suggestions from each other based on, uh, the suggestions merit, not based on the age of the person who's made that suggestion.
[32:59.850 --> 33:02.990]  So, uh, so now we're gonna take a look.
[33:03.130 --> 33:05.770]  Some of the great stuff that's happening to get young people involved.
[33:06.070 --> 33:10.610]  Uh, Penn Manor is a high school that teaches its kids to, uh, run their IT department.
[33:10.610 --> 33:16.190]  So they, uh, they fix computers, they install software, and they ask, they act as the school's help desk.
[33:16.890 --> 33:26.110]  Uh, the open-source laboratory at Oregon State University is doing a great job at the college level of teaching, um, students how to work with real servers.
[33:26.310 --> 33:32.690]  They host a lot of, uh, free software nonprofit projects and, uh, more recently have been doing a DevOps boot camp.
[33:32.830 --> 33:33.550]  Did you wanna say something about that?
[33:33.550 --> 33:36.770]  I wanna just add that there are several other schools also doing great things like that.
[33:36.770 --> 33:41.110]  And if you would like your school to do great things like that, you should talk to me and I can put you in touch with some people.
[33:41.850 --> 33:41.970]  Awesome.
[33:42.590 --> 33:57.410]  And, uh, so, uh, Maker Days, a lot of people bring their kids to Maker Days and teach them to do stuff with Raspberry Pis and Arduinos, um, or, uh, use programs like Scratch or Minecraft to start, uh, getting them interested, not in just using computers,
[33:57.510 --> 34:02.090]  but in, uh, using computers to do the things they want them to do.
[34:02.090 --> 34:08.290]  And, uh, more recently we've also been seeing a lot of Kids Days at big FOSS conferences, which is super exciting.
[34:08.550 --> 34:15.910]  So, people come, they bring their kids for the Saturday and they work on Minecraft or whatever the new Minecraft is.
[34:16.130 --> 34:16.910]  I don't know what it is.
[34:17.050 --> 34:18.430]  Do people still do Lego robotics?
[34:18.670 --> 34:19.110]  Is that a thing?
[34:19.570 --> 34:19.690]  Yeah.
[34:19.970 --> 34:20.250]  Okay.
[34:20.370 --> 34:20.550]  Okay.
[34:20.870 --> 34:21.290]  Yeah.
[34:22.930 --> 34:23.410]  Cool.
[34:23.630 --> 34:27.310]  So, there's a lot of great stuff, um, happening to get young people involved.
[34:27.790 --> 34:31.190]  Um, not in as many places as there could be though.
[34:31.190 --> 34:31.730]  Mm-hmm.
[34:32.290 --> 34:33.650]  And there are some great stuff happening.
[34:33.770 --> 34:34.890]  You get older people involved.
[34:35.130 --> 34:47.570]  So, uh, Outreachy, which is a project of the Software Freedom Conservancy, it's based on the Google Summer Code internship where you work for three months and you get paid to work on free software, but it's not specific to students.
[34:47.570 --> 34:52.050]  So, you can participate in Outreachy, uh, at any age, which is awesome.
[34:52.050 --> 34:58.350]  Uh, opensource.com, which is a new site where, uh, a lot of different articles.
[34:58.530 --> 35:06.330]  I, I write for that and, uh, we have a lot of writers who write for the site that are retired and are really excited and they churn out tons of articles.
[35:06.870 --> 35:09.870]  Uh, and they, um, you know, it's, it's pretty awesome.
[35:09.870 --> 35:12.250]  So, you don't have to even be just doing code.
[35:12.790 --> 35:15.590]  And then, um, edX and Code Academy.
[35:15.830 --> 35:16.210]  Did you wanna?
[35:17.050 --> 35:17.710]  They're cool.
[35:17.910 --> 35:18.690]  You can learn some stuff.
[35:18.890 --> 35:20.390]  There are other similar programs as well.
[35:20.610 --> 35:22.010]  You can learn things like how to code.
[35:22.570 --> 35:24.810]  EdX even has classes with the Linux Foundation.
[35:25.370 --> 35:25.930]  Oh, yeah.
[35:26.570 --> 35:34.770]  Uh, and so, um, so folks have been using these sites to do, like, kind of like, oh, I'm gonna return to the workforce or I'm gonna, like, learn a new programming language.
[35:35.270 --> 35:38.690]  Uh, a lot of, uh, the community-run conferences in the U.S. have, uh, older volunteers and they get a lot done and...
[35:41.910 --> 35:42.490]  Like HOPE.
[35:42.710 --> 35:43.350]  Like HOPE.
[35:43.590 --> 35:44.010]  Yeah.
[35:44.970 --> 35:46.210]  Um, all right.
[35:46.570 --> 35:47.190]  Oops, sorry.
[35:48.390 --> 35:48.710]  And then...
[35:48.710 --> 35:49.270]  Thank you, HOPE volunteers.
[35:50.130 --> 35:53.290]  And then some stuff that isn't necessarily age-specific.
[35:53.670 --> 36:09.630]  Uh, so the, the thing here is that boot camps, online learning, meetups, uh, fast conferences, there's nothing about them that is age-specific, but a lot of times they're done in a way that either sort of subtly or not so subtly codes that they're for a certain age group.
[36:09.630 --> 36:22.010]  So, by not having, uh, childcare or by having the, um, evening social event be clearly for young people that enjoy being somewhere loud, uh, or places that you wouldn't bring children.
[36:22.690 --> 36:23.290]  Alcohol.
[36:23.690 --> 36:24.510]  Yeah, alcohol.
[36:25.070 --> 36:29.170]  Um, I think that Southern California Linux Expo definitely does a really great job of this.
[36:29.310 --> 36:34.230]  They have, uh, their main conference event on Saturday evening is games.
[36:34.230 --> 36:41.950]  And then as it kind of becomes like 10 o'clock when kids are going to bed, then people start coming in and drinking beer and playing games.
[36:42.090 --> 36:43.730]  So it's like, it's kind of a mix.
[36:44.310 --> 36:52.630]  Um, but for the first hour or so, uh, first hour or two, it's, it's very much more family-friendly, and it's not loud in there.
[36:54.230 --> 37:02.610]  So, um, so some stuff that we'd like to see happening is, uh, ways for kids to do non-code stuff also.
[37:02.930 --> 37:06.170]  I started being involved in free and open-source stuff when I was in high school.
[37:06.350 --> 37:10.150]  Um, and I found some events that needed hands and I liked making things happen.
[37:11.170 --> 37:21.510]  Uh, and more places for older people to also do non-code stuff like writing, accounting, event work, some of the stuff that people who are working on the code might not be so great at.
[37:22.070 --> 37:25.710]  So, uh, more support for moms returning to the workforce.
[37:26.210 --> 37:28.810]  Um, that would be fantastic.
[37:29.490 --> 37:32.030]  More events have been having childcare, for example.
[37:32.250 --> 37:34.990]  Um, and that's a really great thing that people can do.
[37:35.750 --> 37:41.230]  Uh, and, uh, perhaps like junior Debian groups or...
[37:41.230 --> 37:41.650]  Debian women?
[37:42.050 --> 37:42.190]  Yeah.
[37:42.510 --> 37:51.070]  Or, uh, affinity groups within, within existing communities to, uh, sort of help, uh, young people find people to connect with.
[37:51.590 --> 37:51.990]  Mm-hm.
[37:51.990 --> 37:56.010]  And, uh, and like I said, all ages social events at FOSS conferences would be fantastic.
[37:57.610 --> 37:59.710]  So, thank you.
[38:00.690 --> 38:03.210]  So, oh, so this is the important part.
[38:03.210 --> 38:07.030]  Which means we're getting close to the end, so you should start thinking of your questions.
[38:08.190 --> 38:08.550]  Okay.
[38:09.190 --> 38:23.890]  Um, so, the call to action here is we want you to go back to your projects and your communities and find ways to bring people in, regardless of age, and make them feel comfortable and communicate what is awesome about your project to new people.
[38:24.290 --> 38:29.770]  And then, uh, to also make sure that you empower them to become real members of your community.
[38:29.770 --> 38:41.310]  Uh, include them in decision-making processes and, uh, make sure that they're part of all the important conversations, and then get out of their way so that they can be awesome and bring more new people into your community.
[38:41.630 --> 38:43.050]  Uh, so no tokenism.
[38:44.810 --> 38:46.590]  And then, I think you had something here.
[38:47.470 --> 38:48.030]  That's it.
[38:48.250 --> 38:48.490]  Yeah.
[38:48.830 --> 38:49.890]  We would love to hear from you.
[38:50.090 --> 38:50.230]  Yeah.
[38:50.350 --> 38:51.630]  So, share your ideas with us.
[38:51.770 --> 38:53.170]  Uh, maybe even use this hashtag.
[38:53.730 --> 38:53.930]  Uh-huh.
[38:54.130 --> 39:00.870]  And just remember that, uh, we want to have a wonderful, strong, successful, free and open-source software movement.
[39:02.590 --> 39:03.070]  Um,
[39:07.830 --> 39:13.350]  and that really does come from by having people who just cover a huge range of experiences.
[39:14.630 --> 39:15.110]  Awesome.
[39:15.830 --> 39:16.170]  So...
[39:16.170 --> 39:16.570]  Thanks!
[39:17.970 --> 39:21.790]  Uh, so, uh, you can line up if you have questions.
[39:22.310 --> 39:25.410]  And, um, we'll talk to whoever's in the front of the microphone.
[39:26.050 --> 39:26.530]  Hi.
[39:26.770 --> 39:27.450]  Except the mics.
[39:27.630 --> 39:28.190]  Oh, there it goes.
[39:28.190 --> 39:33.970]  Uh, ACM, a lot of Association for Computing Machinery conferences, have kids programs.
[39:34.530 --> 39:41.650]  Uh, especially, uh, CHI Kids, SIGCHI, Computers and Human Interaction Conferences.
[39:41.950 --> 39:43.190]  And also SIGGRAPH.
[39:43.490 --> 39:50.750]  And they are really first-rate, uh, conferences for kids, you know, usually between 10 and teenage.
[39:51.190 --> 39:53.410]  Especially if their parents are attending the conference.
[39:53.990 --> 40:00.990]  Do you know if there's any opportunity for kids who are interested who aren't going with their parents to also go and engage with that?
[40:01.210 --> 40:08.830]  Yeah, if they happen to be in, in the same city as CHI is in, they can be in the CHI Kids program or SIGGRAPH program.
[40:08.830 --> 40:13.550]  But I don't think there's any, you know, unaccompanied minor kind of situation.
[40:13.710 --> 40:14.450]  Oh, that's awesome.
[40:17.030 --> 40:17.530]  Hi.
[40:17.810 --> 40:18.030]  Hi.
[40:18.030 --> 40:18.050]  Okay.
[40:18.210 --> 40:28.890]  I feel like, so I feel like, uh, raising awareness of the FOSS movement is, is super important in the, like, K-12 computer science education thing.
[40:29.350 --> 40:33.110]  Is the Free Software Foundation doing anything in terms of outreach?
[40:33.490 --> 40:34.830]  So, neither of us are...
[40:34.830 --> 40:36.890]  Can I actually answer for the Free Software Foundation?
[40:38.210 --> 40:38.690]  Formerly...
[40:38.690 --> 40:39.650]  Former employees.
[40:40.270 --> 40:44.130]  We don't, we don't work with the FSF, uh, either of us in any capacity.
[40:44.730 --> 40:45.950]  Uh, formally.
[40:46.270 --> 40:46.750]  Formal...
[40:46.750 --> 40:46.950]  Yeah.
[40:47.010 --> 40:47.490]  Okay.
[40:47.810 --> 40:48.930]  In a formal capacity.
[40:49.210 --> 40:50.530]  Not in a former capacity.
[40:50.950 --> 40:52.370]  Um, sorry about that.
[40:52.830 --> 40:56.010]  Uh, so what the FSF is doing, I do not know.
[40:56.190 --> 41:01.430]  Um, I know that there are other organizations who are definitely interested in doing things and looking at doing things.
[41:01.430 --> 41:04.450]  Um, I'm gonna put my open-source initiative hat on for a second.
[41:05.050 --> 41:11.770]  Uh, and say that the open-source initiative is working on putting together an education working group, hopefully, fingers crossed, no promises.
[41:12.510 --> 41:27.570]  Um, and if you think you would be interested in coming to us with ideas and trying to put some stuff together or find, or get help finding like-minded people to work on creating things, we would really love to support you and provide you a space and some resources to get started on that.
[41:28.110 --> 41:28.330]  Cool.
[41:28.490 --> 41:29.010]  Thank you very much.
[41:29.230 --> 41:29.610]  Awesome.
[41:32.770 --> 41:37.570]  Hi, so my name is John, and like everything you said at the beginning was pretty much right.
[41:38.450 --> 41:40.430]  Um, also I'm 35, so thanks.
[41:40.990 --> 41:53.710]  Um, but, uh, so I volunteer with an organization in Kentucky called Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, and one of their great principles is kind of, uh, this idea that you stand up and then step back.
[41:54.170 --> 42:02.850]  Sort of, you know, a person who is getting into a thing and starting to work on a thing will be the person who is leading, uh, the leading voice on that thing.
[42:03.010 --> 42:09.490]  And then once they've been doing it for a while, they sort of just hang back and let someone else be the person that stands up and talks about it.
[42:09.670 --> 42:11.970]  Is that something that you feel like just isn't happening?
[42:11.970 --> 42:13.530]  And if not, why not?
[42:13.530 --> 42:15.690]  Uh, yeah, I did sort of allude to that.
[42:15.810 --> 42:23.230]  Cause we, as I said, we have a few people within the free software movement that have, well, uh, they're not doing much stepping back, I guess.
[42:23.610 --> 42:32.130]  Um, and I, I think that, and it's, it's part of, I think it's tied to why a lot of projects are not very welcoming to newcomers.
[42:32.130 --> 42:40.090]  Because if you've been doing something for 10 or 20 years, then it's hard for you to remember, like, the thing that was confusing on your first week.
[42:40.250 --> 42:51.570]  And so, um, I think it's, we would do a better job of bringing in new people if it was like, hey, so I've been here for a month, let me help you with that thing that I remember doing a couple weeks ago that was kind of dumb and annoying.
[42:51.970 --> 42:53.530]  Like, so, yeah.
[42:53.950 --> 42:54.970]  Did you want to add to that?
[42:55.210 --> 43:06.830]  Um, I just wanted to try to quickly add, um, um, free and so free, the, the FOSS movement as a movement, um, and FOSS as, like, smaller projects.
[43:06.830 --> 43:09.310]  It's this, like, big ecosystem and big conversation.
[43:09.710 --> 43:15.010]  Um, and really what we're thinking about is how you get people involved at all levels.
[43:15.010 --> 43:19.910]  And what we're interested in is getting people who are involved, wherever they are, on board with the ideas.
[43:20.030 --> 43:21.270]  We want them to drink the Kool-Aid.
[43:21.510 --> 43:24.990]  Uh, so, getting people to come into your product.
[43:25.170 --> 43:27.450]  So, I'm gonna use Media Goblin as an example.
[43:27.530 --> 43:27.730]  Awesome.
[43:27.910 --> 43:28.750]  We love Media Goblin.
[43:28.750 --> 43:29.390]  They're great.
[43:29.910 --> 43:37.870]  Um, Media Goblin is actually really great at getting young people or anyone really new to show up, to empower them, to step back, to let them take control of things.
[43:38.470 --> 43:39.890]  Um, and we like that.
[43:39.990 --> 43:43.270]  Now we also need to get the rest of the movement doing that as a whole.
[43:43.270 --> 43:46.350]  And it's a pretty big spectrum at that point.
[43:47.070 --> 43:47.510]  Yeah.
[43:48.170 --> 44:01.150]  So, a lot of communication platforms on the Internet, especially the ones that, um, non-technical contributors or people who aren't a contributor yet first come in from tend to often have a minimum age.
[44:01.390 --> 44:05.430]  Like, um, I'm thinking Facebook specifically with 13 or 18 or whatever it is.
[44:05.810 --> 44:10.690]  Could you speak to how that interacts with getting younger contributors involved in projects?
[44:10.910 --> 44:13.090]  And the legal ramifications there?
[44:13.190 --> 44:13.950]  Do you have thoughts on this?
[44:14.110 --> 44:21.950]  Uh, I do know that... I, I met someone, um, um, at scale one year who said, uh, he and his son go on IRC together.
[44:22.170 --> 44:26.950]  Because IRC, well, it's not always a wonderful place even if you're a grown-up.
[44:27.030 --> 44:28.370]  I have another talk about that.
[44:28.630 --> 44:37.330]  But, uh, but he goes in and then he's, like, he'll often, uh, back channel, like, someone's like, oh, well, did you try looking at the documentation?
[44:37.330 --> 44:39.930]  They're like, psst, you're talking to a seven-year-old.
[44:40.870 --> 44:45.270]  And then, all of a sudden, it's like this magic wand and everyone's really nice in IRC.
[44:45.970 --> 44:49.790]  Um, so bring a seven-year-old to... No, uh...
[44:51.790 --> 45:01.950]  Um, so, yeah, I, I, I'm not sure on, like, the Facebook, but, uh, I do know that a lot of tools are not appropriate to send super young people to on their own.
[45:02.130 --> 45:07.630]  So, um, I would say, uh, yeah, uh, they'd probably do better with a buddy.
[45:07.870 --> 45:08.110]  Yeah.
[45:08.290 --> 45:10.630]  Uh, I'd like to add a few quick things to that.
[45:11.230 --> 45:25.530]  Um, this, this, the following things I'm saying are not from my personal experiences, they're from things I've picked up listening to my housemates who run a, uh, uh, after-school, uh, unschooling and summer camp, um, where they deal with young children.
[45:25.950 --> 45:34.530]  Uh, and there are just a lot of legal restrictions when it, uh, or, and protections, really, um, set up for children under the age of 13, especially.
[45:34.950 --> 45:46.330]  Um, I don't have children, but I suspect that many people who do would really prefer that if they're going to take, uh, uh, that if a child is going to get involved with a project and they're younger, that they also be involved, or that they have, like,
[45:46.410 --> 45:49.150]  a buddy adult, uh, participating as well.
[45:49.570 --> 46:00.730]  Um, you know, online communities and digital communities, it's this, like, that's a whole nother set of conversations if we want to talk about, like, what it means to be involved with one and, like, what kind of resources are available for that.
[46:00.730 --> 46:03.970]  And I'm going to stop talking about that right now because we're running out of time.
[46:04.410 --> 46:07.570]  Um, but I think that's a really good question, actually.
[46:07.830 --> 46:18.330]  And, like, thinking of ways to get, to get, like, younger children involved, uh, actively in an ongoing basis outside of events is definitely a good question to think about.
[46:18.410 --> 46:31.150]  And I would love to hear more about how we as communities can empower kids who don't have the technical parents because they have so much potential and I've met great people at conferences, seen them speak, but they all have someone who's already in just bringing them along.
[46:31.170 --> 46:35.010]  It's going to have to be through some of the existing organizations that work with children, I think.
[46:35.970 --> 46:37.250]  Uh, it's going to have to be quick.
[46:37.410 --> 46:46.610]  Okay, I was just wondering, do you have any data on how the, uh, age distribution of the free software community compares to, uh, non-free software?
[46:47.070 --> 46:47.510]  No.
[46:47.810 --> 46:48.030]  Okay.
[46:48.230 --> 46:48.390]  No.
[46:48.950 --> 46:49.650]  So that was quick.
[46:49.650 --> 46:51.530]  But if someone has it, let us know.
[46:52.270 --> 46:53.150]  We'd like to hear it.
[46:53.150 --> 46:54.750]  I would love that information.
[46:55.170 --> 46:56.650]  So, so that'd make me really happy.
[46:56.770 --> 46:56.970]  Thanks.
[46:57.090 --> 46:57.290]  Awesome.
[46:57.470 --> 46:57.750]  Thumbs up.
[46:58.010 --> 46:58.610]  Thanks so much, y'all.
[46:59.210 --> 46:59.350]  Cheers.
[47:00.730 --> 47:01.110]  Nice.
[47:01.950 --> 47:02.290]  Nice.