Análise da influência de grupos de apoio e inclusão de mulheres em comunidades de software livre

Abstract

Researches point out that there is a small women participation in Open Source Software (OSS) Communities. In response, a number of initiatives for inclusion and retention has been created in OSS communities to change this disproportionate scenario. This research investigates whether these initiatives have influence on the engagement and the Psychological Sense of Community (PSOC) of women who participate in OSS communities. Objective: Verifying the influence of women support/inclusion groups in open source projects on the engagement and/or the sense of belonging of women working in the community. Method: In this research, OSS communities were selected and divided into two groups: the first one consists of communities which do not have a formal initiative to support/include women; and the second one contains communities that have a formal initiative to support/include women. These groups were delimited in order to compare the PSOC of the women from each group, in order to find empirical evidence of the influence that these support/inclusion initiatives have on the PSOC. Results: The results highlighted that, for the sample analyzed, the groups did not have influence on the participants’ PSOC. Conclusions: We concluded that the support/inclusion groups have no influence on the participants’ engagement and/or sense of belonging. Some women who work in these communities are even unaware of these initiatives.