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Cited by 118Open Source Software InnovationsSoftware Engineering Techniques and PracticesGender and Technology in Education

Open source barriers to entry, revisited: a sociotechnical perspective

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Mendez, Christopher, Padala, Hema Susmita, Steine-Hanson, Zoe, Hilderbrand, Claudia, Horvath, Amber, Hill, Charles, Simpson, Logan, Patil, Nupoor +2 more·2018·Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering
DOI 10.1145/3180155.3180241
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Abstract

Research has revealed that significant barriers exist when entering Open-Source Software (OSS) communities and that women disproportionately experience such barriers. However, this research has focused mainly on social/cultural factors, ignoring the environment itself --- the tools and infrastructure. To shed some light onto how tools and infrastructure might somehow factor into OSS barriers to entry, we conducted a field study with five teams of software professionals, who worked through five use-cases to analyze the tools and infrastructure used in their OSS projects. These software professionals found tool/infrastructure barriers in 7% to 71% of the use-case steps that they analyzed, most of which are tied to newcomer barriers that have been established in the literature. Further, over 80% of the barrier types they found include attributes that are biased against women.

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  • This philosophy has contributed to a notoriously antagonistic environment for women and minorities.

    “This philosophy has contributed to a notoriously antagonistic environment for women and minorities [14,16,23], with CoCs as a particular sore spot.”

    From Codes of Conduct in Open Source (2024) · cites this paper as [16]

    Section 4.1 says OSS communities often describe themselves as meritocracies and that such cultures tend to be male-dominated and unfriendly to women; it also describes acrimonious interactions as a reason women leave. This supports the claim about women, but our copy does not establish that the philosophy creates an antagonistic environment for minorities more broadly. (LLM, conf=0.86)

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Cited by

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Authors
Mendez, C., Padala, H. S., Steine-Hanson, Z., Hilderbrand, C., Horvath, A., Hill, C., Simpson, L., Patil, N., Sarma, A., & Burnett, M.
Affiliations
Oregon State University (US)
ORCID
Venue
Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering
Publisher
ACM
Published
2018-05-27
Pages
1004-1015
ISSN
0270-5257 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1145/3180155.3180241
OpenAlex
W2808155935
Cited by
118
References
3
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 21 · 2022: 17 · 2021: 22 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 8
FWCI
16.00
Type
conference paper
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.acm.org/publications/policies/copyright_policy#Background (vor)
Locations
ACM/IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceedings (ICSE-Companion) (publishedVersion)
Funders
NSF (1314384,1528061,1559657, 1560526)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Science Applications › Open Source Software Innovations
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Software Engineering Techniques and Practices
  • Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender and Technology in Education
Keywords
open source software, barriers to entry, gender bias, software tools, infrastructure

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