CNCF recently conducted its first microsurvey to better understand the state of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in our community.
This informal survey was designed to create a window into community perspectives on DEI, a core tenet of the cloud native community. CNCF and the entire open source ecosystem have seen rapid growth of projects, and more open source software driving more of the world’s innovation. We felt it was an important time to check in with the community to see if there were places we could provide more support in terms of DEI.
We found that more than 7 of 10 respondents (75%) said open source is becoming more inclusive. This is good news, but the responses also indicate that different groups experience different levels of inclusivity. For instance, men are slightly more likely to feel a strong sense of belonging in the OSS community than women and non-binary individuals, with 77% saying they agree or strongly agree with this sentiment versus 71% of women and 64% non-binary individuals.
Overall, there is room for improvement. More than three-quarters of everyone surveyed believe OSS would be more resilient and innovative with increased diversity of contributors, with men only slightly less convinced than other groups.
- Some 89% of individuals who do not identify as straight agree with this statement compared with 78% of heterosexuals.
- Both Caucasians and minority groups were at 80%.
- 89% of women and 100% of non-binary individuals agreed with this statement compared with 77% of men.
View the full results of the survey here.
Both the Linux Foundation and CNCF expect to conduct regular surveys on the topic to inform us about what is working and what isn’t. We’ll be better positioned to track progress and learn where we need to do more work.