LinuxChix

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

LinuxChix is a women-oriented Linux community. It is designed to provide both technical and social support for women Linux users, although there are members of the community who are men.^{[citation needed]} Members of the community are referred to as "a Linux chick" (singular) and "LinuxChix" or "Linux Chix" (plural) regardless of gender.

1 Foundation
2 Leadership and structure
3 Regional Chapters
4 Events
- 4.1 LinuxChix Labs
5 Other *-women groups
6 External links
7 References
8 See also

[edit] Foundation

LinuxChix was started in 1998-99 by Deb Richardson, who was a technical writer and webmaster at an open source consulting firm.^[1] Her reason for founding LinuxChix was to create an alternative to the "locker room mentality" of other Linux User Groups and forums. LinuxChix discussion is meant to follow two principles:

Be polite.
Be helpful.

[edit] Leadership and structure

LinuxChix started out as an electronic mailing list, but soon graduated into a community with regional chapters in several places around the world. In 1999 LinuxChix consisted of a single mailing list, grrltalk. The growth of this mailing list led to the establishment of other mailing lists, beginning with techtalk for technical discussions and issues for discussion of women's political issues. LinuxChix was first noticed when ZDNet published an article on it, which was cross-posted on Slashdot.^[2]

Deb Richardson ran LinuxChix until 2001, when she handed over global coordination and hosting to Melbourne programmer and writer Jenn Vesperman.^[3] Jenn Vesperman ran the community in a mostly hands-off fashion, delegating almost all tasks including mailing list administration and website maintenance to a group of volunteers.^[4] During Jenn Vesperman's tenure, the number of mailing lists tripled. Her tenure saw the foundation of the newchix mailing list for people new to Linux; the courses mailing list used by Linux Chix to teach each other specific topics; and the grrls-only mailing list, the only list closed to male subscribers, founded by Val Henson in 2002. At around the same time, a LinuxChix IRC server was created.

The term LinuxChix refers to the organisation centered around the official website, the mailing lists and the IRC channels. The organisation has no official status and the name is used by other groups which are comparatively loosely affiliated with the original LinuxChix group, including local LinuxChix chapters which meet in person, and several national and continental groups which operate more or less independently.

In March 2007, Jenn Vesperman announced that she was retiring as the coordinator, and invited nominations for a new LinuxChix coordinator.^[5] In April 2007 Mary Gardiner was announced as the new coordinator, and planned to serve as coordinator until 2009,^[6] however she resigned in June 2007.^[7] Currently it is led by three lead volunteers known as the "Tres Chix" who are elected by popular vote. The current coordinators from August 2007 onwards are Sulamita Garcia, Akkana Peck, and Carla Schroder.^[8]

[edit] Regional Chapters

LinuxChix allows local groups following its principles to use its name. Currently the regional chapters listed on the Linuxchix website for each country are:

Africa

African Linuxchix homepage : In 2004 a new chapter started in Africa ^[9]

Asia

India : In July 2005, Archana Raghupathy started the Indian chapter LinuxChix-India. Besides the website wiki they have a mailing list and an IRC channel #indichix hosted on irc.linuxchix.org servers.

Indonesia
Philippines

Australasia and Oceania

Australia ^[3] : In March 2007, on the International Women's Day, Australia's two LinuxChix chapters united to form a nationwide LinuxChix chapter called "AussieChix".^[10]
New Zealand : In 2007, the New Zealand chapter was established.^[11]

Chicas Linux

Chicas Linux is a community created by women with the goal of offering a meeting space for people with a common interest in Linux and free software.

Europe

France
Italy
Lithuania
London, England
Poland

North America

Canada : Ottawa, Saskatchewan, Sherbrooke/Québec, and Vancouver/British Columbia.
United States : Colorado Springs, Colorado ; Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas ; Denver, Colorado ; Los Angeles, California ; Madison, Wisconsin ; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ; Seattle, Washington ; Silicon Valley, California ; Washington, District of Columbia.

South America

Brazil

[edit] Events

Some local LinuxChix chapters hold regular meetings, others only meet up on special occasions, such as welcoming a Linuxchix member into town, or in conjunction with various technical conferences. In 2007 members of the Sydney chapter organized a LinuxChix miniconf at linux.conf.au at UNSW.^[12]^[13] Many chapters also organize events on special occasions; for eg., in 2005, LinuxChix Africa organized an event to celebrate Software Freedom Day at Wits University.^[14]

[edit] LinuxChix Labs

The Indian chapter (aka IndiChix) which was featured in the Economic Times recently ^[15] has started an initiative for Linux labs across different cities in India. This would serve as a space equipped with PC's (or women could bring their laptops) and an internet connection where women can learn more about Gnu/Linux, collaborate and meet each other to contribute to the Libre software community. Currently the labs have gone live in Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, and Pune.