April 2011 cover girls
March 22, 2011 9:52 PM   Subscribe

A first? This month's Linux Journal cover features Angela Byron, co-maintainer of Drupal 7, while Wired's cover features Limor Fried of Adafruit Industries.
posted by anirvan (19 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
Back when I had a Linux Journal subscription, the cover was hardware about 90% of the time...
posted by kaibutsu at 10:04 PM on March 22, 2011


looks like chris anderson came thru...
posted by kliuless at 10:06 PM on March 22, 2011 [1 favorite]


Hooray! I wondered if this might hit the blue; Angie has been a good friend since I first drifted into the Drupal community, gave me the lead on one of my first paying open source freelance gigs, and has been a coworker for almost half a decade now. She's literally one of the most humble, open-hearted, genuine, and tireless people I've ever met. Her influence on the Drupal community has been amazing to watch over the last 6-7 years, and she helped guide the developer community through one of the most ambitious and arduous release cycles it's ever weathered.

The fact that these two women appearing on the covers of the magazines is noteworthy in and of itself is sad, but the gender disparity numbers in open source especially are daunting. Angie's spoken a few times on the subject, and she's one of the organizers of the DrupalChix user/advocacy group. While the causes for the imbalance are obviously numerous, it's encouraging to see her in such a prominent leadership role for a high profile OSS project. After several years, the Drupal community's gender breakdown has slowly been improving: her influence is absolutely one of the factors that's helped.
posted by verb at 10:09 PM on March 22, 2011 [7 favorites]




Thanks for posting that, kliuless -- it's nice to see Anderson speaking so openly on the subject.
posted by Zed at 11:20 PM on March 22, 2011


To be fair, Jill Greenberg intentionally makes her photographs LOOK photoshopped.
posted by basicchannel at 11:40 PM on March 22, 2011


I remember reading about Wired magazine before it even came out and PRE-subscribing to it and then finally receiving the first issue. I remember being annoyed by all the over-the-top stuff they were doing with inks and design and wondering if they were going to last. It wasn't until the initial nerd-magazine bliss wore off that I began to realize that there were never any women in Wired magazine.
posted by bendy at 12:30 AM on March 23, 2011


squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

i love webchick. she is the most awesomest of the awesomest geekettes i've ever met. no matter how stupid you think the question is, she will either answer it gladly or guide to whomever has the answer. she really has been a MASSIVE influence in not just the development of Drupal but in really moving the community to think more about UI/UX.

i am in awe of her and had i not had her around in the Drupal community, i wouldnt have stayed with the product for 6 years and become a Drupal web architect in the process.

btw, her bio at Drupal is hilarious: Drupal 7 core maintainer, Drupal Association secretary, chief cat herder
posted by liza at 5:26 AM on March 23, 2011 [1 favorite]


Does this mean they're finally going to add http_proxy support to Drupal so I don't have to hand patch?
posted by tommasz at 6:18 AM on March 23, 2011


As a feminist and father of two daughters, I'm delighted to see two actually women engineers make the covers of these fine publications.

As a geek and professional Linux SysAdmin, I'm would like the people responsible for Drupal to be banished to all of the 9 circles of Hell.

So, a little conflicted here.
posted by FfejL at 7:24 AM on March 23, 2011 [9 favorites]


The whole thing with Cord Jefferson's post at good.is is just bizarre; I mean, it's not as if Jill Greenberg is terribly obscure or anything, not to mention the obvious referencing of Rosie the Riveter. I don't know Jefferson, have no idea what's going on in his head, but the whole thing reads like someone jumping up to defend his nerd crush.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:28 AM on March 23, 2011


The wired cover was still heavily shopped to give Limor Fried a totally smooth plastic look. Most of Jill Greenberg's photos still show wrinkles and pores and stuff like that. It's not a crime against humanity or anything, but I simply find that much manipulation tacky.
posted by delmoi at 9:15 AM on March 23, 2011


It's unfortunate that the cover got onto the Net much sooner than the article (which still isn't available except maybe on iPad), because it means almost all of the attention Ada's getting is about the picture & not her work. I'm sure it must be maddening to her, to get this recognition for all the work she's put into creating the open source hardware community & all people can talk about is how she looks on the cover. Hopefully the conversation will change once the article's more widely available.
posted by scalefree at 9:36 AM on March 23, 2011 [1 favorite]


Subscription copies of that WIRED are already out -- I got mine last week. The article is indeed pretty awesome, with lots of different projects that people can take on at different levels of skill. I'm totally not a electronics person, but I'm considering taking it up based on some of the ideas offered.
posted by bizzyb at 9:57 AM on March 23, 2011


i wonder if GOOD is moving into the GAWKER model of "OMGWTF CLICKBAIT!" of revenue because that's what i thought when he himself tweeted it to me.

i mean, it never occurred to him to ask HER if she was offended by the cover? and why the fuck can't an engineer look HOT with some good makeup on and a nice blow-out? why the fuck to smart women need to look ugly and unsexual to prove they're smart?

i found that move and the whole article thoroughly patriarchal.
posted by liza at 10:41 AM on March 23, 2011


Assuming women are photoshopped 'beyond recognition' has pitfalls, learns Internet

...thereby reaffirming the stereotype that with a little polish, losing the glasses and tossing the hair, every geeky lady can be transformed into OMGHAWT. Though the fact that it's Limor does make my heart go pitty-pat. I ♥ her designs the most.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 12:12 PM on March 23, 2011


'co-maintainer' seems like the title of someone that works on a futuristic space ship that contains nothing but humans in cold storage.
posted by oxford blue at 3:09 PM on March 23, 2011


Wired's put the story on their web site: Q&A: Open Source Electronics Pioneer Limor Fried on the DIY Revolution.
posted by scalefree at 7:17 PM on March 29, 2011


Cindy Royal's response (the blogger whose blog kliuless linked to above.)
posted by Zed at 10:07 AM on April 1, 2011


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