Open-source software may be sweeping across the tech industry, but it’s marked by poor documentation, rude developers and a striking lack of women.

That’s according to GitHub, the popular web-based version control repository and Internet hosting service, which has just published the findings of its 2017 Open Source Survey. More than 5,500 community members from more than 3,800 projects were quizzed in the survey, as well as 500 coders outside of its ecosystem.

Poor documentation

One of the major findings reveals how highly developers value thorough documentation of projects, even though this is often overlooked by many. The findings also reveal the impact of negative interactions in the open-source community, and how open-source is used by the world.

Incomplete documentation was highlighted as a major problem by 93 percent of respondents in the survey. However, some 60 percent said they rarely or never contribute to documentation themselves. To fix this, GitHub recommends that developers do their bit to help out maintainers by opening a pull request to update documentation as needed.

GitHub said the most important kind of documentation for both users and contributors is licenses, with 64 percent saying an open-source license is a key consideration when deciding whether or not to use a software project.

Developers behaving badly

The survey also noted the impact of negative interactions between members of the community, and how these extend even beyond those who are personally involved. More than 50 percent of respondents said they had witnessed negative interactions between other users, while 18 percent said they had experienced one personally.

“It’s not possible to know from this data whether the gap is due to people who experienced such interactions leaving open-source, or broad visibility of incidents,” the report noted. “Either way, negative interactions impact many more than the immediate participants, so address problematic behavior swiftly, politely, and publicly, to send a signal to potential contributors that such behavior isn’t typical or tolerated.”

Negative behavior identified in the report includes things such as rudeness, and also more serious offenses such as doxxing, stalking and making sexual advances, though these were reported by less than 5 percent of respondents. GitHub suggests that it might provide better tools for users to protect themselves from this, including the ability to block certain users.

Women coders remain elusive

The report also found that the gender imbalance in open-source is even more extreme than the tech industry in general. It noted that an overwhelming 95 percent of respondents were male, while just 3 percent were female, and just 1 percent described themselves as “non-binary.” Women were also found to be more likely than men to come across content or language that made them feel unwelcome (25 percent versus 15 percent). They’re also more likely to experience unsolicited sexual advances than men (6 percent versus 3 percent).

“Collaboration between strangers is one of open-source’s most remarkable aspects: strive to build a community where everyone feels welcome to participate,” according to GitHub.

The full results of the survey can be downloaded from GitHub.

Image: GitHub