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GitHub donates private repositories to women learning open source software

adainitiative.org

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Re: GitHub donates private repositories to women learning open source software

#3

Post by clintonc »

I'm actually pretty angry about this. A much better plan would have been to offer free private repositories to any not-for-profit entity. Offering exclusively to women seems, to me, discriminatory.

Edit: Reading the article more closely, I'm not as bothered as as I was. Technically, Github granted unlimited private repositories to the Ada organization, who (I suppose) delegates their use to its members. It's not as though you can go to github.com and say, "I'm a woman, give me free private repositories."

Re: GitHub donates private repositories to women learning open source software

#5

Post by archon »

> This reluctance has good reasons behind it: fear of being told they are bad programmers, fear of being publicly mocked or harassed, and even fear of losing job opportunities. All of these are greater risks for women on average than men.

[Citation needed]

Edit, to expand on the kneejerk reaction: I find it difficult to accept the premise that this is a female-only problem. I've been reluctant to post my code before as well, and I'm male. The sometimes ruthless mockery of code isn't confined to code written by females.

Re: GitHub donates private repositories to women learning open source software

#6

Post by qntmfred »

clintonc wrote: post #3

I'm actually pretty angry about this. A much better plan would have been to offer free private repositories to any not-for-profit entity. Offering exclusively to women seems, to me, discriminatory. Edit: Reading the article more closely, I'm not as bothered as as I was. Technically, Github granted unlimited private repositories to the Ada organization, who (I suppose) delegates their use to its members. It's not as t…

well since Ada is paying the sponsorship, I guess they can distribute them however they like, yes?

Re: GitHub donates private repositories to women learning open source software

#8

Post by clintonc »

qntmfred wrote: post #6
clintonc wrote: post #3

I'm actually pretty angry about this. A much better plan would have been to offer free private repositories to any not-for-profit entity. Offering exclusively to women seems, to me, discriminatory. Edit: Reading the article more closely, I'm not as bothered as as I was. Technically, Github granted unlimited private repositories to the Ada organization, who (I suppose) delegates their use to its members. It's not as t…

well since Ada is paying the sponsorship, I guess they can distribute them however they like, yes?

The way I see it, ADA is not paying -- Github is donating. This is, actually, much less incendiary than the headline would lead us to believe...

Re: GitHub donates private repositories to women learning open source software

#9

Post by marquis »

bencollier49 wrote: post #4

IANAL, but this appears to be a breach of the Equality Act 2010. Are they offering this in the UK?

If you'd like to get your local Scouts group to work on code within the safe measures of private repos, I'm sure you'd also find sponsors. It's not a breach of Equality when you aren't stopping other people from doing something. I'm sure Github would love sponsorship from all over the place.

A benefit of this is clever on Ada and Github's part: a lot of women don't participate in code sharing because of reasons that are discussed here enough. So women will get to find each other and work on code together and hey, the world gets software, and Github makes some happy new customers. I, for one, am signing up even though I barely have the time - I'm eager to meet other women coders in a working environment and I'd like to find a small way to pay back the massive debt I have to the open source community.

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