Cultures of Open Source: A Cross-Cultural Analysis

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Presented at HOPE 2014 by

While a common philosophical and cultural thread ties all of us in open source together, the ecosystem is as diverse as the world itself. In fact, open source projects are a kaleidoscope of cultures that influence how they are approached, how teams interact, outcomes, and what type of people they attract. At the same time, open source is suffering greatly from a lack of diversity. Three percent are women, and many users from non-English subgroups feel their voices are not heard in the OS ecosystem. This panel will discuss: how open source projects can build bridges to help incorporate people from non native English speaking communities, examples of when lack of cross-cultural sensitivity goes wrong, descriptions of patterns and regional differences observed in various open source communities, and why the Dutch are some of the best open source volunteers ever.