Notes from Angie Byron's excellent keynote Women in Open Source (note that this applies to all minorities, not just women!).

• Men and women see things differently, men don't see discrimination where women do
• The ridiculously sexist CouchDB p*rn presentation
• Death threats to Kathy Sierra on Creating Passionate Users
• Drupalcon Paris sexist silhouette website controversy - attacking people for speaking up is the real problem
• Solutions
  • Be sensitive to discrimination & take action i.e. point it out
  • As women to participate, i.e. outreach
  • Fight the Einstein participation because everybody to help! - this perception kept Angie out of open source for 10 years until Google Summer of Code:
    • value all contributions not just code
    • create a list of low hanging fruit tasks - i.e. starter "gateway" tasks
    • foster friendly and encouraging environment - i.e. basic respect, take 30 seconds and answer the "dumb" questions
    • make sure "how to contribute" steps are well documented
    • mentorship programs
    • if you are a woman/minority, be out and proud! http://geekspeakr.com/
• open source is fun!
• open source is inspiring and educational
• open source is fundamentally rewarding
• open source is an excellent career move in these trying economic times
• how to start?
• find a project
• find resources, find out how the particular project community you have chosen gets stuff done
• don't tolerate BS
• contribute as early and as often as possible
• myth busters:
• what is a contributor? 3 traits, see something they can fix and do something about it
• what qualifies as contribution? not just code but also event coordination, marketing, documentation, usability, etc
• how improvements are REALLY made in an open source project - no magic, collaborative process where everybody helps and everybody has something to offer
• homework, call out a*s hat behaviour, blog about a women has helped you, etc.