You may not have noticed but last year OSHWA adopted some conference policies.

This step was encouraged by a friend and member of the open hardware community, Lenore of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, and we happily complied. Luckily, the folks at the Ada Initiative made it easy, they have example drafts of conference policies pretty much ready to go.

The Open Source community has generally been just that, Open. We feel lucky to be a part of such an open culture.

This policy is in place for the same reason people have health insurance – just in case. It basically says “be supportive, fair and awesome. If you aren’t, you may be asked to leave” So while the Ada Initiative wrote and encouraged adoption of policies targeted towards preventing harassment of women, these ground rules apply to everyone.