Introduction

The timeline of software engineering can be neatly split into before and after open source. From Linux, Python, and Blender all the way to a literal trip to Mars, open source has revolutionized our relationship to technology and, by extension, fundamentally transformed the world we live in today. These accomplishments are owed to a simple set of core principles sometimes referred to as the open source way: transparency, collaboration, inclusion, community, and early, frequent releases. Yoked together, these practices have freed software developers from redundant and siloed work, curtailing stagnation while radically multiplying opportunities for innovation and growth. And, in privileging hard skill sets over formal credentialism, open source has lowered barriers to entering the tech field and made professional advancement more attainable.

While open source has proven itself to be effective, global, and progressive, it’s still vulnerable to structural systems of bias and oppression, including racism, ableism, sexism, ageism, and queerphobia. Case in point: Despite the well-established fact that greater diversity on teams produces higher-quality, more innovative products, the tech industry is still overwhelmingly led by white, university-educated, cis-gender men. To put it bluntly, if we know that more inclusive, ethically operated businesses and projects make for higher-performing, happier teams and more robust technologies, then the lack of diversity in tech doesn’t just perpetuate inequality – it’s actively holding us back.

I’ve spent my entire career working to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in one capacity or another across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, from Wall Street to Washington, DC, and beyond. As a technology analyst at Goldman Sachs – my first job out of college – I learned what it feels like to participate in an inclusion program for people from underrepresented backgrounds. I then returned to school for my JD and MBA, eventually becoming the first woman and youngest person to serve as Executive Director of the National Bar Association. There, I encountered the reach and limitations of social sector organizations in effecting change. When I moved on, it was to a chief-of-staff role with an elected official in Washington, DC, for whom I oversaw efforts on racial equity and economic inclusion and where I learned how government policy fits into anti-bias work. More recently, I held the role of Global Diversity and Inclusion Lead at Red Hat, where I was faced with the challenges and benefits of doing DEI work at a private corporation. And, in my continuing work as a lecturer at North Carolina State University, I have a first-hand view of the structural biases that students, as well as educators, have to grapple with on a daily basis.

Today, I’m the Chief of Staff to the CEO, formerly the Senior Director of Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Strategy, at GitHub, where I find myself with a rare opportunity to synthesize these distinct but interwoven experiences. What I’ve found across the board is no shortage of good intentions. I’ve seen how much research is conducted, how many reports are published, and how many statements and policies are generated in the service of achieving DEI goals. And I’ve seen how, more often than not, DEI work is done behind closed doors, such that the resources out there tend to remain siloed, duplicative, and limited by the scope or reach of the institutions that create them.

In other words, if open source has a “diversity problem,” then DEI has an “open source problem.” I’ve set out to explore exactly this dilemma and investigate a critical question: How can we open source DEI?

To answer this question, I’ve led GitHub in the launch of an open source DEI program called All In. Our primary mission is to use open source principles to foster open source environments that are welcoming, hospitable, and nurturing to all talent. To extend my earlier metaphor, this includes documenting our efforts and findings in an open source environment so that businesses, community leaders, and other interested parties can both draw from and contribute to this critical work.

GitHub isn’t the only hosting platform for open source projects, but at the time of writing, it’s certainly the largest: GitHub reaches over 100 million developers and counting, across every state in the United States and virtually every country and region in the world. I say this not to toot our own horn but to illustrate that we are a resource that’s shared by private companies, government agencies, universities, project managers, students, and developers. Being that common denominator makes us uniquely well-positioned to harness those aforementioned principles of open source (transparency, collaboration, inclusion, community, and early, frequent releases) to unite specialized stakeholders in addressing the glaring disparities in representation and belonging within this field.

Over the course of this chapter, I’ll investigate the ways in which an open source model can supplant slow, disjointed DEI efforts with nimble, inquisitive, community-driven solutions. I’ll walk you through the steps we’ve taken thus far, from gathering quantitative and qualitative data to establishing and growing All In. Finally, I’ll share how you, too, can join this movement.

The Journey

Even the best intended efforts can go awry when leaders make assumptions, rush to conclusions, or allow implicit or explicit bias to guide their decision-making. I’ve repeatedly found that the best antidote to these pitfalls is dialogue, even – or especially – when it’s not pretty. Step 1 of open sourcing DEI was no different: we had to start by listening.

At GitHub, we took a two-pronged approach to information gathering. It was important for us to collect both quantitative and qualitative data, not only as a jumping-off point but to allow us to set benchmarks and track changes over time.

First, we partnered with the Linux Foundation to create the 2021 Open Source Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Survey. In order to gather a data set that spoke as accurately as possible to the state of DEI in open source at a particular moment in time, we knew it was critical to examine lived, intersectional realities and ask questions that invited as many participants and perspectives as possible. Because ample research points to the ways in which bias can infiltrate seemingly neutral survey questions, we decided to make crafting this survey something of an open source DEI project unto itself. After each revision, we asked ourselves, “Who hasn’t seen this? What voices aren’t represented here? Who else do we need to talk to?” Ultimately, over 200 people with different identities reviewed and contributed to the questions. The survey, launched in July 2021 and garnered responses from over 7,000 members of the international open source community.

Second, we set out to gain a better understanding of the strengths, limitations, and challenges faced by open source community leaders. These project managers and maintainers are key to driving change, but we already knew anecdotally that many were struggling to realize their DEI goals. In that spirit, we embarked on a listening tour, inviting maintainers from around the world to speak to us about their experiences. We ran these conversations virtually and at industry conferences and also circulated an online form for those who couldn’t participate in an individual interview or focus group. In this initial four-month push, we spoke to over 300 maintainers who ran projects of varying sizes, demographic makeups, and missions.

I’d like to share some of the most meaningful and immediately actionable conclusions we’ve reached in analyzing both sets of data:

  1. 1.

    Open source needs to be more inclusive.

    One thing that was consistent, no matter who we talked to or the size of their community, is that there are still significant barriers to access and belonging in open source for folks from underrepresented or historically excluded backgrounds. Though we were initially quite pleased to learn that 82% of our respondents agreed with the statement, “I feel welcome in open source,” we’ve had to balance that feedback with the fact that over 80% of our survey respondents identify as male, 74% identify as heterosexual, and 71% are between the ages of 25 and 54: a relatively homogenous group.

    Diversity, equity, and belonging work needs to focus on the 18%, or the one in almost five of our survey respondents, for whom inclusion is the exception, not the norm. We simply cannot expect to recruit and retain a broader, more diverse pool of developers until more is being done for the 25% of people with disabilities, the 26% of women, the 29% of persons of color in North America, and the 38% of non-binary and third-gender contributors who do not feel welcome in open source.

  2. 2.

    DEI intervention should begin at the community level.

    Statements and policies about diversity and inclusion are important, but our survey respondents made it clear that a sense of belonging is generated first and foremost out of day-to-day interactions between community members.

    Negative interactions take a multitude of forms, any of which can lead to someone leaving a project or even giving up on the open source community for good. We found that women, non-binary, LGBTQ+, and people with disabilities were twice as likely as other respondents to have experienced threats of violence and that profanity, racist jokes, sexual imagery, and rudeness all affect someone’s sense of belonging. But what our survey emphasized is that silence and passivity can be just as toxic as explicitly hostile interactions and bigoted language.

    Some people reported feeling that without certain technical skills and knowledge, they aren’t welcome to participate. This is likely complicated by the fact that many said the path to leadership and personal growth on a project can be opaque, leaving aspiring developers in limbo. Other respondents shared that not being white or male or highly educated or wealthy makes them feel that their voices aren’t heard and their contributions aren’t valued. Still others said that when they do try to participate, their contributions are rejected or ignored. A full 80% of respondents who don’t feel welcome said that feeling ignored or not receiving a response to their contributions happens occasionally, and almost 40% said that it happens regularly.

  3. 3.

    Maintainers need help.

    If day-to-day interactions between team members are what create or dispel a sense of belonging, then it’s the maintainer or project manager who sets the tone and framework of those interactions.

    Now, on the bright side, virtually all of the maintainers we spoke to said they understand the importance of fostering an inclusive culture and working with a diverse team and that they have access to plenty of training resources and boilerplate codes of conduct. But maintainers shared that the pressure to onboard people quickly to get a project off the ground can be all-consuming, leaving them stretched too thin to focus on the community’s culture or invite the participation of contributors outside their relatively homogenous personal networks.

    All agreed that it’s more efficient and humane for inclusion efforts to happen at the outset of a project – and that this is exactly the moment when they’re least likely to have adequate time to actually focus on it. With the appropriate resources to identify and de-escalate code-of-conduct violations and enforce best practices, maintainers would be better equipped to safeguard their communities.

  4. 4.

    We need to invest better in our ecosystem.

    Much of the focus thus far has been on existing community members. But if we truly want to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion in the open source landscape, we need to identify students and potential community members earlier in their journey and supplement their tech education. As we’ve begun working with researchers, students, maintainers, and community leaders, it’s become increasingly clear that current funding strategies are suboptimal for DEI.

    This starts with access to both broadband and devices. In 2021, roughly 255% of American households did not have Internet access [Catherine McNally, 2021], and the numbers are much higher in other countries. Even where access is technically available, the cost of that access can be prohibitive.

    Similarly, deeper investment in our educational infrastructure is absolutely necessary to increase access and digital sustainability. Currently, the partnerships between companies and universities consist of funding special research projects, offering internship opportunities, or industry-designed certification courses. But for many under-resourced schools, infrastructure limitations make it burdensome, if not impossible, to take advantage of the opportunities sent their way. Directing funding toward infrastructure has the potential to revolutionize the tech landscape.

    Finally, we need to expand the umbrella of what counts as “tech” education. One of the great, democratizing elements of open source is that you don’t need an undergraduate degree in order to participate. Recognizing this, increasing numbers of employers are joining GitHub in shifting away from degree requirements (excepting, of course, degree- and certification-dependent roles in accounting, legal, etc.). We have an opportunity to redefine what makes a programmer and ask how we can grow the number of programmers, especially from marginalized communities, in a more equitable, sustainable way. To do so, educational efforts need to incorporate elements like resume-building, personal finance, the nuances of online and asynchronous communication, and interpersonal and leadership skills into our teaching models.

  5. 5.

    There are opportunities for everyone in the chain.

    My first foray into DEI work was as an undergraduate student at North Carolina A&T State University. I count myself very privileged to have attended a historically black college and university (HBCU) that continues to be well-resourced and recognized for graduating the highest number of black engineers in the country. Hundreds of companies sent recruiters to our campus each year, and as a top-performing computer science student, I had an abundance of job offers before I even graduated. What I saw, though, was that these recruiters were overlooking some of the university’s best programmers. These were fellow students and friends who were athletes or active military, who had hours-long commutes or full-time jobs in addition to their full-time coursework, and whose commitments made it hard for them to keep up a high GPA. Unlike me, they didn’t have time to be in the computer lab all day every day – but that didn’t mean they couldn’t program circles around those of us who could.

To combat this issue, I launched a university-sponsored program called Aggie Engineering Ambassadors, which required recruiters to come to my organization in addition to career services. Aggie Engineering Ambassadors partnered with these companies to host get-togethers in informal spaces – roller-skating rinks, bowling alleys, and the like – where students could spend time and connect with recruiters, share their stories, and introduce themselves as multifaceted human beings. I’m proud to say many students came out of those interactions with internships.

The lesson here is that change feeds change, and amazing things can happen when you bring people together. If we’re truly going to advance diversity and inclusion in tech – or anywhere – we’ll need everyone at the same table. This project isn’t just inspired by open source: it is open source. There’s room, and a need, for participation from everyone: individuals, communities, companies, foundations, researchers, and beyond. Only then can we ensure we’re finding and embracing the best talent, at a time when we need it most.

The Implementation

Collectively, the research-based findings outlined previously led me to create All In, a global ship to learn initiative focused on driving diversity and inclusion as an open source community, for an open source community. All In brings together corporate partners, universities, industry leaders, researchers, and foundations to collectively tackle barriers to access and success within open source for people from underrepresented backgrounds and regions.

When we launched in 2021, it was with a two-track pilot tailored to the demographics we identified as needing the most help: students and maintainers.

All In for Students

In the absence of universally functional school infrastructures, we knew we wanted to find other ways to ensure successful outcomes for our most vulnerable and marginalized students and contributors. At this time, not all computer science programs are created equal, and opportunities for students with great potential can be limited by financial constraints and access. All In for Students offers additional support and education through specialized instruction designed to offset inequalities in the current computer science education system.

Our 12-month pilot of All In for Students included stipends, technology resources, curricula to support technical education and career development, and individualized mentoring, all provided and facilitated by our growing chain of partner institutions. To begin, we turned to our seven founding university partners, all of which are minority-serving institutions, and worked closely with department chairs and professors to identify candidates across diverse lived experiences. Working directly with these minority-serving universities ensured we’d be able to pragmatically address what individual schools and students actually needed.

We wanted to recruit the same students I remembered from my Aggie Engineering Ambassadors days, the ones whose academic experiences might be complicated by other obligations, be it commuting two hours to school each day because they couldn’t afford to live on campus, providing caregiver support (especially due to COVID-19), working full time, serving as active-duty military, or training year-round as a student athlete to maintain their scholarships. I already knew these students were hardworking, dedicated, and motivated – they just needed an opportunity to thrive.

I also knew that we needed to start small: our initial cohort was just 30 students. When you’re a well-resourced institution like GitHub, resisting the temptation to scale right out of the gate isn’t easy. But massive programs rarely align with the realities of those who are under-resourced and can even exacerbate the problems they’re trying to solve. It’s those who are under-resourced who bear the burden of this misalignment, which causes burnout and stress. When programs are scaled up too quickly, we lose the ability to see people as individuals, and relationships and trust become that much harder to build.

It’s sometimes said that people of color are over-mentored and under-sponsored, meaning that opportunities to receive guidance exist in far greater profusion than professional endorsements. I can tell you from personal experience that, for people of color, personal connections and relationships are absolutely vital to our success in tech. My first internship, the summer after my freshman year of college, was through a diversity program called Project Breakthrough, with IBM. There were only eight of us in that program, and I always say that, without that impact program, you probably wouldn’t see me on this trajectory today. Most of the successful people of color I know in tech can also point not only to an impact program but to a specific person who was willing to put their time and reputation into doing personal outreach, writing testimonials, or otherwise advocating for their mentee.

With the significance of personal connection in mind, our students were paired with specialists at every phase of their journey with us. In our effort to expand the umbrella of tech education, students received a range of services, beginning with professional development training. Speakers covered topics ranging from career possibilities in tech to dealing with micro-aggressions to developing and owning their personal stories, each designed to equip our students for workplace success. Students also enrolled in online, self-paced courses designed to introduce them to the fundamentals of open source, cloud infrastructure technologies, and DevOps. To address the isolation that sometimes comes with asynchronous learning, students had access to a professor for one-on-one instruction and a class forum to connect with other members of their cohort. Finally, students completed a ten-week open source project. Students were paid for their time and given the opportunity to work on teams whose members had established careers in tech while regularly meeting with a mentor to support them through the experience.

Throughout the program, each and every student worked closely with the All In team on a weekly basis. The goal was for these students to walk away from the program with a robust resume, a free laptop, and ultimately an internship with one of our corporate partners. Of the 24 students who completed the program requirements, 100% went on to intern with leading partner companies including GitHub, Red Hat, Microsoft, Fidelity, Intel, and Cisco.

As we look toward the future of All In for students, it’s with an eye toward responsible growth that continues to bridge the mentorship-sponsorship divide: something we believe is achievable by growing our team of All In liaisons and facilitators as we continue to expand our corporate and university partners.

All In for Maintainers

Working with students allows us to find and nurture more diverse talent to join our communities, but it’s equally critical that the communities they enter are adequately resourced to provide a safe and nurturing environment to members of all backgrounds. In 2021, we also set the foundation for the All In for Maintainers program, aimed at providing training and technical support to community leaders who want to advance diversity and inclusion but lack the resources to do so.

We already encourage maintainers to take small but impactful steps, like issuing an automated message welcoming new contributors to the community, letting them know that their voice is appreciated and their contributions are valued, and explicitly telling them ways they can contribute meaningfully no matter their experience level. To that end, we’re working with our partners to fund grants for maintainers from marginalized and/or historically excluded backgrounds and for projects that serve under-resourced communities.

Many of our maintainers have explained that they don’t need more information, per se – during our listening tour, many touched on the overwhelming volume of resources, talks, podcasts, and digital checklists. Instead, they need a way to sort through those resources and implement the most relevant recommendations, to know where to go to address a particular issue when it’s actually happening in their community. To provide them with a clear pathway, we’re in the process of building an open source hub of DEI resources that’s intuitively organized, navigable, and, most importantly, actionable.

To distinguish the maintainers and communities who have committed to doing this DEI work, we’ve become a founding partner to build a DEI badging program with the CHAOSS Project. We’ll be working with participants in this program to provide actionable recommendations, direct technical assistance, and even financial support.

Conclusion

At the outset of this chapter, I argued that diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts would benefit as much from open source principles as open source communities would benefit from greater diversity, equity, and inclusion. We launched All In to facilitate growth on both these fronts, to feed two birds with one seed. In our first year, I’m proud to say that we brought on 17 founding partners and seven partnering educational institutions and reached more than 1,000 community members. This year alone, we’ve expanded All In to reach 300 students from 79 HBCUs, Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs), and community colleges, and we’re on track to reach over 5,000 community members by the end of 2025. We’ve done our initial research, and we’ve set the foundation to bring the revolutionary qualities of open source to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the tech industry. Now, it’s time for us to spread our wings.

One statistic that jumped out at me from our survey was the 89% of respondents who feel they can have a positive impact on the world. This tells me that the open source community is suffused with optimism and motivation. I have no doubt that we are collectively capable of achieving our mission. I want to invite you to join us in open sourcing diversity, equity, and inclusion and take part on this journey to make a lasting impact together. Much as open source has revolutionized more than just technology, open sourcing DEI has the potential to revolutionize far more than just the open source community. Whether you’re a developer, a CEO, a student, a fellow DEI professional, a researcher, or an activist, there’s a place for you at https://allinopensource.org. I know I’m All In. GitHub is All In. Are you?