From June 17th through June 22nd, Fedora (the community arm of Red Hat), held a "Week of Diversity" event.
You'd be forgiven for not knowing this took place... as it appears that nobody from within the Linux, Open Source, or Red Hat world was interested in it either.
And, when I say nobody, I mean... nobody.
fwd - Fedora Week of Diversity
Billed as an event to "amplify the voice of those underrepresented, and stand shoulder to shoulder, united in our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion", the Fedora Week of Diversity was a virtual event of presentations and panel discussions (predominantly by Red Hat staffers, on Red Hat time).
Considering the ongoing lawsuits related to Red Hat's well documented discrimination of their employees... this "diversity" event seemed important to watch, analyze, and report upon.
With that in mind, I set about watching the roughly 2 1/2 hours of video which made up the entire "Week of Diversity" event.
As I was watching the "Opening Remarks", something peculiar caught my eye below the video: the total number of views. Let's zoom in there...
ENHANCE!
Your eyes do not deceive you. 44 views.
The opening video of this Fedora / Red Hat event, with the theme of "Empowering Diversity", had been watched only 44 times. In total... since it had been published roughly a week earlier. And at least one of those views was me.
And the remainder of the videos from this event had even fewer views. By using the "44" views screenshot above, we are making this event look as popular as possible.
To put those 44 views into perspective:
Red Hat has roughly 19,000 employees. Fedora Linux has an estimated 1.2 Million users (give or take).
How many people were interested in a "Week of Diversity"? 44.
This complete and total lack of interest -- by anyone within Red Hat or the Linux community -- can be seen throughout this short, live video event.
One presentation -- entitled "Integrating DEI values into business strategies and driving values" (not kidding... that's really the tittle) -- ended with a Question and Answer segment...
... where you can watch the two presenters sit, awkwardly, waiting for questions.
Questions... that never arrive.
The entire event goes on like this. No views. No comments. No questions from the "live audience". An absolute ghost town of a tech event.
What can we learn from the 44 views?
With the ever-increasing attacks on various Linux distributions and open source projects, it's easy to believe that we are surrounded, at all times, by an army of "DEI Activists".
Yet, even within Red Hat, a company seemingly plagued by racist, discriminatory DEI policies, so few of their 19,000 employees are actually supportive of the DEI agenda... that they can barely muster 44 views of their premier, DEI-promoting event.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Red Hat is a company so utterly and completely committed to the DEI concept, that they are standing firm even when sued by the government. And, despite that, they can't get more than a small handful of their employees to express even a vague level of support for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
At a time when "DEI Activists" are attacking Open Source projects and Tech Organizations left and right -- that "44" number provides me with a great deal of optimism for the future of Linux, Open Source, and the computer industry in general.
