---
title: Contending With Our Culture of Discouragement
osem_url: https://osem.seagl.org/conferences/seagl2019/program/proposals/718
beginning: '2019-11-16T15:15:00.000-08:00'
end: '2019-11-16T15:35:00.000-08:00'
presenters:
- name: Michael Dexter
  osem_url: https://osem.seagl.org/users/954
  gravatar_id: 8b53c673be312de54f7af73f9f24984b
---

The Free Software/Open Source community appears to be at a crossroads.

A brave woman declared that "enough is enough" with the disturbing statements of a pivotal figure in the community and it rightfully cost that figure a number of prominent positions. Remarkably, she wasn't the first woman to challenge a foundation leader this year and help usher them to the door.

Responses to such confrontations have ranged from outpouring of support to the proposal of morality-enforcing licenses for software, to some amount of backlash.

One theme however, is the chilling effect that disturbing, and at times unlawful behavior in the community causes, and the efforts to contend with it. Why participate in communities with *these* issues? This passive discouragement is often combined with direct discouragement and countless forms of divisiveness.  Yet we press on, and work to resolve these bugs, one by one.

This talk will discuss identifying and contending with discouraging behavior in communities of any size.
