Nearly a year ago the FSF held a mini-summit for women in free software to investigate practical ways to increase the number of women involved in the free software community. Those that attended the summit formed the Women's Caucus, and have been working to develop practical policy to recommend to the FSF and the wider free software community.

When will women be taken seriously in the FOSS community? That's a question that needs to be asked after the Debian GNU/Linux project garnered headlines earlier this month over an offensive mailing list post that had at least two women considering whether they would continue their involvement in the project.

At least two Debian women developers are reconsidering their participation in the GNU/Linux project following the posting of what they deem to be a sexist message to one of the mailing lists meant for developers.

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.

The Women's Caucus is seeking an intern to assist with its work to increase the number of women involved in free software.

The Free Software Foundation will host a mini-summit on Women in Free Software to discuss how the free software community can cultivate and increase participation by women in free software's development and activism communities.

The Software Development Times has published an in-depth look the Free Software Foundation's (FSF) attempts at breaking down barriers for women in open source. It highlights the recently released report by the FSF's Women's Caucus, a mini-summit held last year to address issues in the FOSS community that some say prevent more females from participating.

The premier annual Linux and Open Source conference in Australia, linux.conf.au, is once again hosting a LinuxChix mini-conf. We are now calling for presentations by women on both Free Software technical topics and other topics of general interest to women involved in Free Software or working in IT.

The KDE Community participated in the Outreach Program for Women (OPW) for the first time this year. It was more successful than expected. KDE got many great applications and mentored 4 students contributing to Free Software. The Outreach Program for Women encourages women to get involved in free and open source software.