I’m two days late blogging about the latest release of GNOME Journal (and thanks to Danni for mentioning it!).

This is a very special issue written by women in the open source community. It’s the first time we’ve done a themed issue and all articles are by women in the open source community. Also, with the exception of Danni and Stormy who have written for GNOME Journal before, all are first time writers for GJ!

Women in open source (and the IT industry in general) is a topic I’m passionate about, having seen it first hand in a few different ways. My wife worked in the IT industry (at the same employer I did) for 8 years and I also helped manage the Geek Squad at Best Buy for a number of years before leaving 2 years ago. Having over 10,000 computer technicians there was definitely a lack of diversity and talent, including women, which is / was a focus area for the organization.

I’m proud to have helped manage the release (though it was a bit later than I had hoped due to my lack of time management skills). The idea for this issue came from the GNOME Women community, and they found the writers and drove this issue. Thank you!

We have eight articles in this issue (a record!):

  • Telepathy, Empathy and Mission Control 5 in GNOME 2.28
  • Telepathy Overview
  • The Un-Scary Screwdriver
  • Where are they now? The Participants of the 2006 Women’s Summer Outreach Program
  • Easy Breezy Beautiful GNOME Shell
  • GNOME desktop testing automation and how to use Mago
  • Epiphany from a – not so experienced – user perspective
  • An Interview with Leslie Hawthorn

We also had a number of new editors help out, and I’d like to personally thank Zonker and Sumana for all their help in making this release happen.

Go read it now!