Pia Waugh is a leading advocate for FLOSS in her home country, Australia, and all over the world. In addition to running a consultancy in partnership with her husband, she is the vice president of Linux Australia, the president of Software Freedom International (sponsor of the annual Software Freedom Day events), and on the board of directors of the OLPC Australia program.

If you think that Linux is only "for the boys", then think again. Did you know that there are women-oriented Linux communities that are created to provide both technical and social support for women Linux users? The most well known among them is called LinuxChix, and I’m not kidding. To know more about LinuxChix, I have collected some interesting facts about them so read on.

We can talk to women who come to user group meetings and invite them to speak. By being friendly and asking women directly to speak up, we open the door for participation. If we insist on equal participation, the structure of our organizations will change. The first time I spoke up in a user group was terrifying, but I did so because a peer politely, but repeatedly, asked me to speak.

On various women's mailing lists, a subscriber has raised the idea of a distribution developed "for and by women." So far, the idea has met with a cool reception. It might even be a troll. However, if such a distro ever gets underway, it would be very much in the spirit of the community, and might give more women the background and confidence to reduce the gender gap in free software.

I've been in the IT industry for over 27 years now. I first was introduced to Linux almost 12 years ago, I've really been a part of the Linux community for over nine years now. You'd think in that time things would have gotten better for women in IT in general and the Linux community in particular. There are certainly more of us in IT and Linux than there were a decade ago, right?