Grassroots developer communities form around shared values in dissent against institutions and norms that dehumanize their work and diminish their efforts. They attack these orthodoxies with humor, heretical thinking, and hard work.

This benefits society when developers defy those with greater power. It harms society when developers bully people with less power.

At the ThoughtWorks sponsored Agile East, Martin Fowler spoke to his post, SmutOnRails.

Part of the community was offended by a presentation at the GoGaRuCo (Golden Gate Ruby Conference). Others fought back saying that no offense was meant, the presenter apologized, and that the tone was in the spirit of the Rails community.

(T)he view of the rails leadership seems to be this: that the objections to the presentation are yet another attempt to foist empty corporate values on the thriving Rails ecosystem… (more)

This debate is not unique to the Rails community. It reminds me of concerns my friend, Luke Melia, raised over jokes and behavior at the first Austin Alt.NET. Martin Fowler links off to a similar controversy in the Flash community.

It is also not unique to developer communities but developers in particular need to be concerned about the outcome.

Women, African Americans and Hispanics are under-represented in IT and even more so in software development. In 2001-2002 74.4% of software developers were men. 78% of those men were white.

In 1986 the percentage of women in CS programs peaked at 37%. The percentage of women in computer science programs has gone down since then.

In 2001-2, only 28 percent of all undergraduate degrees in computer science went to women. By 2004-5, the number had declined to only 22 percent. — What Has Driven Women Out of Computer Science?, NY Times

There were 15,000 women in CS progreams in 1986. Riding natural cycles this number was not matched again until 2003. This latter number contains a higher percentage of non-resident aliens who will not necessarily contribute to the US workforce.

This despite higher percentages and numbers of women acquiring college educations than men. In 2007, 33% of women 25-29 held a four year degree or higher versus 26% of men. 55% of graduates with four year degrees or higher aged 25-29 were women.

Women are even receiving the majority of degrees in science and technology. They have shown steady progress in biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics and engineering.

Metrics can be misinterpreted but these quantitative measures support a stunningly obvious anecdotal observation. US software developers are a white male enclave.

This is a power imbalance and we developers are part of the problem.

Isolation is a key factor for a higher attrition rate among women and minorities, said Teresa Dahlberg, director of the Diversity in Information Technology Institute at UNC Charlotte. People tend to associate with “like communities,” where people have similar backgrounds and interests, she explained. — Computer science lacks women, minorities, SD Times

So when we behave in a way that marginalizes and intimidates talented women and minorities, we abuse power. We become bullies. We are oppressors.

“There is a good amount of research that shows that women are judged more harshly than men, for hiring, evaluations and promotions,” she added. “Virginia Valian [author of "Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women"] shows this for women in science, technology, engineering and math faculty jobs.” Virginia Valian is a professor at Hunter College. — SD Times

Part of the problem may be a perception that software development doesn’t contribute enough to society. To the degree this perception is true it is damning. To the degree it is just a perception we have work to do as advocates.

Our actions need to be judged not by our intentions but by the outcome.

Requisite variety within our teams remains an essential enabling condition for sustained innovation.

Access to technology is growing across all tiers of class, race and gender both in the US and overseas. Diverse teams can better address our market and build software better adapted to our end users.

A more diverse workforce provides the kind of social change that will help us create a more humane workplace for developers.

Finally, anything that limits the number of able US software developers hurts our ability to compete.

When developer communities marginalize women and minorities, we conspire to isolate ourselves from the larger society. We defeat our own attempts to change the power structures around us and improve our lot and our output.

Posted: November 15th, 2009 under development.
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Streams of two segments from the NPR show On the Media:

Smirch Engine

There’s a name for how cruel people can get given a little anonymity on the internet. It’s called “online disinhibition effect” and the resulting venom can ruin your day or worse, destroy your good name.

The Net’s Mid-Life Crisis

The basic architecture of the Internet hasn’t changed since it was conceived 40 years ago. But what was once the playground of wonks is now the main staging area for the global economy and open to an array of security vulnerabilities.

Posted: August 16th, 2009 under development.
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The tool used to commit a crime might amplify harm and justify more severe punishment but it doesn’t change the nature of the crime.

A judge dropped the “cyberbullying” conviction against the woman who allegedly contributed to the suicide of a 13 year old girl.

The judge found the particular law she was prosecuted under, “illegally accessing a computer”, was unconstitutionally vague and could be applied to anyone who violated a social network’s terms and conditions.

The defendant says she never should have been prosecuted.

Here’s what she was accused of doing:

Prosecutors said Drew sought to humiliate Megan by helping create a fictitious teenage boy on the social networking site and by sending flirtatious messages to the girl in his name. The fake boy then dumped Megan in a message, saying the world would be better without her.

She hanged herself a short time later, in October 2006, in the St. Louis suburb of Dardenne Prairie, Mo.

If an adult, disguises him or herself as a teen and uses that false identity to approach a thirteen year old child for the purpose of manipulating and harming that child, isn’t that a crime?

If the direct result of those actions is mental anguish for that child — if the indirect result is the death of that child, isn’t that a crime?

If not, we need to reform our existing laws not distract ourselves coining a new “cybercrime” to describe people who happen to do this using MySpace.

Defendant Says Dismissal of MySpace Hoax Case Linked to Suicide Was ‘‘Proper’ – washingtonpost.com http://bit.ly/lyAoa

Posted: July 4th, 2009 under personal.
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There’s a movement among the students of the MBA program of Harvard Business School for an MBA Oath of ethical conduct. Read the oath here.

From a June 4th article in the Economist:

The student oath is part of a larger effort to turn management from a trade into a profession…

This is the exact debate going on in Software Development — emerging profession or craft?

One of the two main criticisms of the oath and of the whole idea of turning management into a profession, particularly in business-school faculties, is that it is either unnecessary or actively harmful… (by) promising to “safeguard the interests” of colleagues, customers, and society, are the future captains of industry simply short-changing their shareholders?

Defenders of the oath reply that the goal of maximising shareholder value has become a justification for short-termism and, in particular, rapid personal enrichment. They are concerned about managers doing things that drive up the share price quickly at the expense of a firm’s lasting health.

The second complaint is that the oath’s fine words are toothless.

Even these cheerleaders admit there are differences between practising management and, say, medicine. They concede that no self-regulating professional body for managers could possibly monopolise entry to the profession

We can debate that a practice has ethical consequences, i.e. that it has a larger array of stakeholders who can be harmed or benefited by the daily decisions of practitioners – without calling for accreditation, lincensing, certification, standards bodies, and regulation.

Developers should consider end users, society and our common reputation even as managers consider long-term investors, employees, their industry and the larger economy.

Name a widespread activity that isn’t abetted/enabled by software systems. Even the debate over an MBA Oath:

As for punishing unprofessional behaviour, Mr Khurana (Rakesh Khurana, a professor at Harvard Business School) is inspired by the internet rather than by a closed council of grandees. From open-source software to eBay and Wikipedia, new systems of self-regulation are emerging based on openness, constant feedback and the wisdom of crowds. These could be adapted, he thinks, to provide effective scrutiny of managers.

If anything about this strikes you as not true, I’d love to hear why.

Posted: June 7th, 2009 under development.
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ContactPoint is a web accessible database containing identity information for all English children.

From the Department for Children, Schools and Families:

ContactPoint holds the following basic information for each child in England up until their 18th birthday:

• name, address, gender, date of birth and a unique identifying number
• name and contact details for each child’s parent or carer
• contact details for services working with a child: as a minimum, educational settings such as schools and GP practices
• contact details for other service providers where appropriate, for example health visitors or social workers; and whether practitioners are lead professionals and have undertaken assessments under the Common Assessment Framework (CAF). Please note these are not currently held on the system but will be added over time.

The new flow of information is intended to detect abuse and save children’s lives. According to the Financial Times:

It (ContactPoint) was first proposed after the 2003 Laming report into the death of Victoria Climbié, the eight-year-old girl who died after failures by social services.

Still the risks are alarming.

From the Times Online:

In March the Government admitted that it had uncovered problems in the system for shielding details of an estimated 55,000 vulnerable children. These include children who are victims of domestic violence, those in difficult adoptions or witness protection programmes and the children of the rich and famous, whose whereabouts may need to be kept secret.

However, there remain concerns about the security of the database, which was recently criticised by the Rowntree Trust as illegal under human rights and data protection laws.

Balancing the potential for benefit and harm can be incredibly difficult. Is the right answer obvious to you?

Posted: June 1st, 2009 under development.
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From Huffington Post, Washington Times Runs Obama Girls’ Photo With Story About Murdered Chicago Kids

Editor John Solomon told Greg Sargent technology, not a person, was to blame.

“The theme engine, through automation, grabbed a photo it thought was relevant, and attached it to the story,” Solomon said, acknowledging that the photo had gone up without a person seeing it. “There was no editorial decision to run it. As soon as it was brought to our attention, we pulled it down.”

“There was no editorial decision to run it”??

Who decided to acquire/build a search algorithm to publish file photos without human oversight?

The example is outrageous but using loose tags to associate photos of people to stories of crime and human tragedy? Under what circumstances does this technical solution make journalistic sense?

Technology to blame? Not even the technologists. Doesn’t this newspaper have an editorial board?

How about applying the same standard of care to your online property that you’d use for print?

Mistakes happen but blaming your tools just betrays how unequipped you are to use them.

Posted: May 16th, 2009 under personal.
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From Gothamist, “NYU Accidentally Makes Fools Out of 489 Prospectives”

NYU sent an email to nearly 500 students this week that they should pack their bags and get ready to make their way over to Greenwich Village this fall as members of Wagner School’s next graduate class. An hour later, the school sent another email telling those same students to scratch that—they were actually rejected.

Posted: April 4th, 2009 under personal.
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From the Associated Press:

Reports of Internet-based crime jumped 33 percent in 2008, according to a group that monitors web-based fraud.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center said in its annual report released Monday that it received more than 275,000 complaints last year, up from about 207,000 the year before.

The total reported dollar loss from such scams was $265 million, or about $25 million more than the year before.

Posted: March 30th, 2009 under development.
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From the New York Times article, Vast Spy System Loots Computers in 103 Countries, by John Markoff

Intelligence analysts say many governments, including those of China, Russia and the United States, and other parties use sophisticated computer programs to covertly gather information.

The electronic spy game has had at least some real-world impact, they said. For example, they said, after an e-mail invitation was sent by the Dalai Lama’s office to a foreign diplomat, the Chinese government made a call to the diplomat discouraging a visit. And a woman working for a group making Internet contacts between Tibetan exiles and Chinese citizens was stopped by Chinese intelligence officers on her way back to Tibet, shown transcripts of her online conversations and warned to stop her political activities.

Posted: March 29th, 2009 under development.
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“Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will.”

– Frederick Douglass

“Power takes as ingratitude the writhing of its victims.”

– Rabindranath Tagore

Posted: March 23rd, 2009 under personal.
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