Editing Open-source software (section)

== Society and culture ==

=== Demographics ===
Despite being able to collaborate internationally, open source software contributors were found to mostly be located in large clusters such as [[Silicon Valley]] that largely collaborate within themselves.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last1=Wachs |first1=Johannes |last2=Nitecki |first2=Mariusz |last3=Schueller |first3=William |last4=Polleres |first4=Axel |date=March 2002 |title=The Geography of Open Source Software: Evidence from GitHub |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0040162522000105 |journal=Technological Forecasting and Social Change |language=en |volume=176 |pages=121478 |doi=10.1016/j.techfore.2022.121478|arxiv=2107.03200 }}</ref> Possible reasons for this phenomenon may be that the OSS contributor demographic largely works in software, meaning that the OSS geographic location is closely related to that dispersion and collaborations could be encouraged through work and [[social network]]s.<ref name=":0" /> Code acceptance can be impacted by status within these social network clusters, creating unfair predispositions in code acceptance based on location.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Rastogi |first1=Ayushi |last2=Nagappan |first2=Nachiappan |last3=Gousios |first3=Georgios |last4=van der Hoek |first4=André |chapter=Relationship between geographical location and evaluation of developer contributions in github |date=2018-10-11 |title=Proceedings of the 12th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement |chapter-url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3239235.3240504 |language=en |publisher=ACM |pages=1–8 |doi=10.1145/3239235.3240504 |isbn=978-1-4503-5823-1|s2cid=215822439 |url=http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:3b3ad2bd-d865-4a78-b5f0-cdb849d2ee50 }}</ref> Barriers to international collaboration also include linguistic or cultural differences.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last1=Gonzalez-Barahona |first1=Jesus M. |last2=Robles |first2=Gregorio |last3=Andradas-Izquierdo |first3=Roberto |last4=Ghosh |first4=Rishab Aiyer |date=August 2008 |title=Geographic origin of libre software developers |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0167624508000395 |journal=Information Economics and Policy |language=en |volume=20 |issue=4 |pages=356–363 |doi=10.1016/j.infoecopol.2008.07.001|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Furthermore, each country has been shown to have a higher acceptance rate for code from contributors within their country except India, indicating a bias for culturally similar collaborators.<ref name=":1" />

In 2021, the countries with the highest open source software contributions included the United States, China, Germany, India, and the UK, in that order.<ref name=":0" /> The counties with the highest OSS developers per capita from a study in 2021 include, in order, Iceland, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, while in 2008 the countries with top amount of estimated contributors in SourceForge were the United States, Germany, United Kingdom, Canada and France.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> Though there have been several studies done on the distribution and contributions of OSS developers, this is still an open field that can be measured in several different ways.<ref name=":1" /> For instance, Information and communication technology participation, population, wealth and proportion of access to the internet have been shown to be correlated with OSS contributions.<ref name=":1" />

Although [[gender diversity]] has been found to enhance team productivity, women still face biases while contributing to open source software projects when their gender is identifiable.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last1=Bosu |first1=Amiangshu |last2=Sultana |first2=Kazi Zakia |chapter=Diversity and Inclusion in Open Source Software (OSS) Projects: Where do We Stand? |date=2019 |title=2019 ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM) |chapter-url=https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8870179 |publisher=IEEE |pages=1–11 |doi=10.1109/ESEM.2019.8870179 |isbn=978-1-7281-2968-6|s2cid=197640269 }}</ref> In 2002, only 1.5% of international open-source software developers were women, while women made up 28% of tech industry roles, demonstrating their low representation in the software field.<ref name=":62">{{Cite journal |last=Nafus |first=Dawn |date=June 2012 |title='Patches don't have gender': What is not open in open source software |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1461444811422887 |journal=New Media & Society |language=en |volume=14 |issue=4 |pages=669–683 |doi=10.1177/1461444811422887 |s2cid=206727320 |issn=1461-4448|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Despite OSS contributions having no prerequisites, this [[gender bias]] may continue to exist due to the common belief of contributors that gender should not matter, and the quality of code should be the only consideration for code acceptance, preventing the community from addressing the systemic disparities in female representation.<ref name=":3" /> However, a more recent figure of female OSS participation internationally calculated across 2005 to 2021 is 9.8%, with most being recent contributors, indicating that female participation may be growing.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Trinkenreich |first1=Bianca |last2=Wiese |first2=Igor |last3=Sarma |first3=Anita |last4=Gerosa |first4=Marco |last5=Steinmacher |first5=Igor |date=2022-10-31 |title=Women's Participation in Open Source Software: A Survey of the Literature |url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3510460 |journal=ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology |language=en |volume=31 |issue=4 |pages=1–37 |doi=10.1145/3510460 |arxiv=2105.08777 |s2cid=234778104 |issn=1049-331X}}</ref>

=== Motivations ===
There are many motivations for contributing to the OSS community.<ref name=":4"/> For one, it is an opportunity to learn and practice multiple skills such as [[Computer programming|coding]] and other technology related abilities, but also fundamental skills such as communication and collaboration and practical skills needed to excel in technology related fields such as [[Issue tracking system|issue tracking]] or [[version control]].<ref name=":4" /> Instead of learning through a classroom or a job, learning through contributing to OSS allows participants to learn at their own pace and follow what interests them.<ref name=":4" /> When contributing to OSS, the contributor can learn the current industry best practices, technology and trends and even have the opportunity to contribute to the next big innovation as OSS grows increasingly popular within the tech field.<ref name=":4" /> Contributing to OSS without payment means there is no threat of being fired, though reputations can take a hit.<ref name=":4" /> On the other hand, a huge motivation to contribute to OSS is the reputation gained as one grows one's public portfolio.<ref name=":4" />

=== Disparities ===
Even though programming was originally seen as a female profession, there remains a large gap in computing.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Albusays |first1=Khaled |last2=Bjorn |first2=Pernille |last3=Dabbish |first3=Laura |last4=Ford |first4=Denae |last5=Murphy-Hill |first5=Emerson |last6=Serebrenik |first6=Alexander |last7=Storey |first7=Margaret-Anne |date=April 2021 |title=The Diversity Crisis in Software Development |url=https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9354402 |journal=IEEE Software |volume=38 |issue=2 |pages=19–25 |doi=10.1109/MS.2020.3045817 |issn=0740-7459}}</ref> [[Social identity]] tends to be a large concern as women in the tech industry face insecurity about attracting unwanted male attention and harassment or being unfeminine in their technology knowledge, having a large impact on confidence.<ref name=":3" /> Some male tech participants make clear that they believe women fitting in within the culture is impossible, furthering the insecurity for women and their place in the tech industry.<ref name=":2" /> Additionally, even in a voluntary contribution environment like open source software, women tend to end up doing the less technical aspects of projects, such as [[manual testing]] or [[Software documentation|documentation]] despite women and men showing the same productivity in OSS contributions.<ref name=":2" /> Explicit biases include longer feedback time, more scrutinization of code and lower acceptance rate of code.<ref name=":2" /> Specifically in the open-source software community, women report that sexually offensive language is common and the women's identity as female is given more attention that as an OSS contributor<ref name=":3" /> Bias is hard to address due to the belief that gender should not matter, with most contributors feeling that women getting special treatment is unfair and success should be dependent on skill, preventing any changes to be more inclusive.<ref name=":3" />