Resources

This is the Final report of a second large-scale survey of 1588 developers of open source and free software, which was called the FLOSS-US survey for 2003. The first FLOSS survey targeted primarily European OS/FS developers, with 71% of respondents living in Europe or Russia, only 13% living in the United States, and roughly 17% living elsewhere in Europe or the world. The FLOSS-US survey sampled many more developers from countries outside of Europe, with 53% living in Western Europe, 27% living in North America, 8% in Russia and Eastern Europe, 5% in East Asia, 3% in Australia and New Zealand, 3% in Latin America, and 1% in the Middle East and Africa. <br />

This document forms the final report for the FLOSS project. <br /><br /><p><br /><br />The Project objectives were remedy the lack of information on Free/Libre/Open Source Software starting at the very beginning: by conducting surveys to generate a unique base of primary data on Free/Open Source Software usage and development; identifying indicators to measure value creation and dissemination in the OS/FS arena; identifying business models based on these indicators; identifying the impact of and recommending changes in government policy and regulatory environments with regards to OS/FS; finally, the development of a base for extending these to the broader economic measurement of non-monetary and trans-monetary activity in the information society, beyond the domain of OS/FS. <br />

This paper tries to analyse the FLOSS development from a <br /><br />"techno-feminist" perspective (Wajcman 2004). Staying away from a reductionism that simplifies the gender issue in the FLOSS community to the level of a fight between men and women, the issues I attempt to address include not only the inequality that women face in computing, but also other inequalities that other users face mainly emerging from <br /><br />the power relationships between expert and lay (namely, developer and user) in software design. Instead of splitting women and men in the FLOSS development, this analysis helps motivate both men and women to work together, reduce the gender gap, and improve the disadvantaged <br /><br />statuses of women and a wider users community in the FLOSS development.

This document presents an analysis of the context in which many of the scenarios linked to the WSIS are set - binded to other issues such as global commerce, human rights and Internet governance. The author affirms that the development of these scenarios impact directly the WSIS agenda, excepting the issues related to human rights, which are not raising enough concern to the UN member states.

This study presents the current status of Gender and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) based on the survey of related projects, research and actions from the standpoint of various social stakeholders: state, private sector, academia and the civil society. This work focuses on the application of the gender perspective – whether explicit or not.

This document is intended to describe the funding strategies of the Information Society (IS) that are currently under discussion at the preliminary meetings of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) – Second Phase, which will be held in November 2005 and, from a gender perspective, to tie them into the commitments undertaken through the Goals of the Millennium, the Beijing Action Platform and Funding for Development, among others.

This discussion paper asks if new technologies are re-shaping or facilitating trafficking, and/or if the use of ICTs in trafficking will change the way we understand other issues. For example, how should we think about the distribution of women's images against their will; can we talk about trafficking in images, and what relation does this have to the debate about pornography? It explores government responses and the tension between the right to privacy and the right to freedom from violence in the context of ICTs. This paper is a joint publication of AWID and the APC WNSP.<br />

This statement on Gender and Free/Libre & Open Source Software (F/LOSS) was written by participants of a session on Gender & F/LOSS at the Asia Source Tech Camp, held in Bangalore on 28th January - 4th February, 2005. The Statement looks at gender in the context of the camp, with an aim to inform planning of similar F/LOSS workshops in the future.

This page links to two documentary films on women and ICT that were produced in the framework of UNESCO’s pilot project 'Putting ICT in the Hands of the Poor', that are now available online. They examine the information needs of poverty stricken communities in South Asia, with a special focus on gender issues.