BTW: One of the other thing that I socialized was how
this community was
always open and inviting to people regardless of sexual orientation, race,
creed etc. There have been disagreements (which Larry can regale you on a
few as I know he holds a certain people responsible for bad things, ushc as
how the Linux community was handled). But I wanted to try to see if we
could get some of the important women, not just the men (i.e. the Systers)
as well as some of the folks from the LGBQ community that were a part.
It's an interesting social history as well as technical one.
I want just want to add to this comment Clem. You are spot on in my
experience. It's one of the bright spots of our industry, in my
opinion (I can imagine that there are people who will disagree, this
is just what I've seen).
In my experience, nobody cared if you were male, female, gay, lesbian,
transgender, whatever, it was all cool if you could figure out this
kernel panic, we'll kiss your ass (well, maybe not that but we'll buy
dinner at Harry's Hafbrau and that's better than a kiss).
I've watched a tech writer go from female to dude to female and nobody
cared, she was a good tech writer.
I'm sure there are people that will disagree but the world I lived in
was super welcoming to people being different, all we cared about was
can you do your job.
--lm