Overcoming Challenges: Women in Open Source Projects on GitHub

• Cinthia Provesi Pissetti UFSC
• Luciana Bolan Frigo UFSC
• Isabela Gasparini UDESC

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/wit.2024.2341

Abstract

Women are underrepresented in the information technology area. In open-source collaborative environments, this scenario is also reproduced. For the research, two communities on GitHub were analyzed and four repositories were selected. Despite the challenges and low representation, there has been a gradual increase in women's participation over time, highlighting the continued need for policies and initiatives that promote gender equality in these communities. One of the findings of this research shows that in a specific repository for women, they made 83.33% of the comments. In comparison, in the other repositories, their participation is around 5.56%, despite the percentage of women being practically equal to that of men. The importance of future qualitative research is also considered to understand the motivations and challenges faced by women in these areas.

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