Women & Mozilla

Not that many women in FLOSS, eh? So let’s try and show what women are working on inside of Mozilla and give them a little bit more visibility…

WoMoz is proud to present Flore Allemandou and her contributions and hard work through a quick video (approx. 5min). The quality is not perfect but others will follow and we’ll get better as time goes on

So here we go: http://womoz.mirocommunity.org/video/220/interview-with-flore-mozilla-w

Thanks Flore for this interview!

I don’t know if you travel a lot or not. However in my case, 2 years ago I was living in the UK, and was able to watch and record everything on UK TV and on the radio. 3 months ago I was in France, able to do the same on French TV and radio. And now, I find myself in Germany. I have the same computer, with the same bookmark. And yet, something is not working the way it used to be.


These are the 3 biggest European countries. Except you can’t have access to the same information on the Internet in the same way.


Let me explain.


I can’t stop having this really boring message “This video contains content from xxx. It is no longer available in your country.” Where xxx is Sony or WMG or whatever major you can think of. And I really do not understand why this is happening. Because 2 years ago or even 3 months ago, it was fine, I was able to watch this video (or to hear this song). And now it seems that I am punished for not being in the country where a contract has been signed between whoever I do not have anything to do with.


The funny thing – because it is really funny (or not really actually) – is that I can still access the same song, video or program or whatever. Yes, I can. I just need to go to another website. EMI songs are not available from Germany on Youtube, that’s why there is an official EMI channel on Dailymotion where I can access everything. Or better, I do not have any access to the biggest French and UK TV channels (BBC, TF1, France Télévisions…) over the Internet to watch live programs or available content, I just need to switch on my television and here they are. Yes, I can watch them on my TV but not on my computer. And please note that even if I am happy to pay in this case, I still can not access those contents on the Internet.


Deezer: no it’s not working here (yup, there is no Deezer in Germany), so you can go to Groovehsark. It does solve this issue on a per song point of view, however what happens for your playlist? Sorry gals and guys, you just have to create it again. Oh and Spotify, do you know that Spotify is not available in Germany? I mean not really, because as a premium member I can use it according to their website

To continue using Spotify from abroad, sign up for Spotify Premium  which gives you unlimited travel access.

It is not that I really have an access, it is just that I say I am living in France and on a very-long-trip in Germany and as I am a premium member actually it does the trick.


Have you heard about the Ken Loach story? Ken Loach decided last Month to stream for free all his movies on Youtube. Every week a new movie was due to be available on his channel. A really great idea for such a controversial artist. I don’t really know what happened. At the moment, only 2 movies are available and we can read this on his channel

We have been asked by distributors in France, Belgium and the Netherlands to block the films on this channel from these territories. We have also been asked by another party to remove ‘Riff Raff’, ‘Raining Stones’, ‘Hidden Agenda’ and block ‘The Navigators” from the UK. We sincerely apologize and hope to resolve this matter soon.

So I am not sure what to do and what to think about this situation. In some cases, I do believe that sadly the only solution is to download illegally those files or to install a VPN (or any other solution that makes a website believe you are in the same country). The person is the same, the only difference is where you are accessing from. I do not understand why it is making such a big difference. And I am not even talking about all the American websites like Vevo on Youtube, Hulu or the American TV Broadcast Channel Websites where you can watch the series’ episodes or even the Apple Store. No, I am just speaking about Europe. And how the contents are available legally but not from every distribution channel/website available.

Time for a (long overdue) overview of what has been happening in the Women & Mozilla project since our last update.

Mainly, we have been very busy with accomplishing the tasks from our 2010 WoMoz Roadmap, just as we had planned and announced. Here are some more details concerning this long-term task, as well as our other activities:

• 2010 Roadmap
  • What has been done

  We have successfully accomplished the first steps of our Roadmap and followed our predetermined milestones accordingly. Only the survey is taking us longer to create than we expected (especially concerning the elaboration of the survey questions), while some future tasks have been started in advance, such as working on creating a Newcomers Team and mentorship program.
  So what does this mean concretely?
  We have mainly worked internally, contacting leaders throughout the various – and numerous – Mozilla communities in order to find out who and where the Mozilla women contributors are. This first phase permits us now to have a general and more accurate idea of who these women are, what they work in, how long they have been contributing, as well as the proportion of women and men in these teams (list to be published soon).
  We know of course that it is difficult to find *all* the contributors, however this will help us gain a much better overview and perspective than we had before.
  Concerning the Newcomers Team and mentorship program, we are currently brainstorming on ways to integrate this idea within the general Mozilla project. You may find notes concerning these ideas and this projects on our Meeting Notes page here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/WoMoz/StatusMeetings

  • What still needs to be done

  As mentioned above, we still need to finish elaborating the internal survey questions. This survey will be distributed amongst the women contributors in Mozilla that we have contacted and that have contacted us as well. We will also elaborate a specific survey for the Mozilla women employees.
  The main goal of this survey is to have an overview of the profile of the women working and contributing in Mozilla, as well as their activities and perceptions in the institution.
  The purpose of the survey will be to detect areas of improvement related to gender issues in Mozilla and FLOSS communities for further actions and to give more visibility to women’s work.
  More info and notes about the survey can be found here.

• WoMoz side-tasks
  

As you can notice, our blog has a new theme now. It still has some minor issues and bugs to fix, however the theme is practically ready to rock & roll! A big and special thanks to Béatrice Kreng and Julia Buchner for having dedicated so much of their time on this.
Also, we are currently working on a fun Fortune package that we would like to integrate into Linux distributions. It will basically be like the Wanda Fortune Fish that already exists on Ubuntu for example, with quotations from famous women.
A more detailed list of our side-tasks can be found here.

• What we still need help with

The two main areas were we still need help and volunteers with are: writing articles on the blog and making videos. If you are interested in helping out, please don’t hesitate to contact us or leave a comment below.

• Update on the number of community members & contributors
  • Mailing List -> 80 people
  • Wiki Members -> 28 registered users
  • IRC -> around 15 online (during European Time Zone)
  • Facebook WoMoz Fan Page -> 140 fans

• More info and details about the WoMoz Project:
  • Our Meeting Notes
  • Directly on our Website

As always, feel free to join us for our meetings if you’re interested! They’re open to *all* and any suggestions for the project are welcome.

Barbie has had 124 careers since 1959: she was a princess, a rock star, an Olympic champion, an air hostess and an astronaut. Toy company Mattel has launched a contest to determine their next Barbie doll’s occupation and she has finally received her 125th job: she will be a computer engineer.

According to the director of Barbie marketing for Mattel, a lot of female engineers and other women in the tech industry voted for this Computer Engineer career for Barbie.

Mattel explains that “To create an authentic look, Barbie® designers worked closely with the Society of Women Engineers and the National Academy of Engineering to develop the wardrobe and accessories for Computer Engineer Barbie®. Wearing a binary code patterned tee and equipped with all the latest gadgets including a smart phone, Bluetooth headset, and laptop travel bag, Computer Engineer Barbie® is geek chic.”

Barbie’s new career is not just an answer to the demand of the popular vote, it’s also a way to encourage young girls to aspire to engineering or technology careers.

Sources:

http://www.zdnet.fr/blogs/l-esprit-libre/la-poupee-barbie-sera-informaticienne-et-utilise-linux-39713313.htm

http://www.chipchick.com/2010/02/computer-engineer-barbie.html

Summary of an article written by Mathilde Cristiani

Indian girls are massively interested in computer sciences and engineering jobs¹. The number of girl teenagers following theses studies has increased by 125% in 2008. They are attracted by information and communication technologies related to environment or electric resources, but not so much by nuclear or aerospace industries. 71% women are careerist, and the same percentage have chosen this stream because of the attractive salaries.

And what about parity? It’s interesting to notice that there are different perceptions of the situation between male and female workers: 55% men think that women and men are equal in the company. But what do women think about that? Only 26% share the same opinion. So, who tells the truth? We can see that in fact only 30% women are involved in management activities in their companies.