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. Members of the community are referred to as "a Linux chick" (singular) and "LinuxChix" or "Linux Chix" (plural) regardless of gender.

LinuxChix was started in 1998-99 by a technical writer Deb Richardson, a technical writer and Webmaster at The Puffin Group, 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.

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 handed over global coordination and hosting to Melbourne programmer and writer Jenn Vesperman^[3]. Jenn Vesperman has run the community in a mostly hands-off fashion, delegating almost all tasks including mailing list administration and website maintenance to a group of volunteers. During Jenn Vesperman's tenure, the number of mailing lists has 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. By 2002, there were 18 LinuxChix regional chapters in the United States, six in Europe, five in Canada and two in Australia^[3].

In 2004, new chapters in India and Africa were formed^[4]. In 2007, the New Zealand chapter was established^[5]. In March 2007, on the International Women's Day, Australia's two LinuxChix chapters united to form a nationawide LinuxChix chapter called "AussieChix"^[6]. In March 2007, Jenn Vesperman announced that she will be retiring as the coordinator, and invited nominations for a new LinuxChix coordinator^[7].

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 2006, LinuxChix inspired the creation of WikiChix, a wiki and mailing list for female wiki editors to discuss issues of gender bias in wikis.

[edit] Linuxchix 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 organised a LinuxChix miniconf at linux.conf.au at UNSW^[8]^[9]. Many chapters also organize events on special occasions; for eg., in 2005, LinuxChix Africa organized an even to celebrate Software Freedom Day at Wits University^[10].