Leadership and Structure
LinuxChix started out as an electronic mailing list, but soon graduated into a community with regional chapters in several places around the world. In 1999 LinuxChix consisted of a single mailing list, grrltalk. The growth of this mailing list led to the establishment of other mailing lists, beginning with techtalk for technical discussions and issues for discussion of women's political issues. LinuxChix was first noticed when ZDNet published an article on it, which was cross-posted on Slashdot.
Deb Richardson ran LinuxChix until 2001, when she handed over global coordination and hosting to Melbourne programmer and writer Jenn Vesperman. Jenn Vesperman ran the community in a mostly hands-off fashion, delegating almost all tasks including mailing list administration and website maintenance to a group of volunteers. During Jenn Vesperman's tenure, the number of mailing lists tripled. Her tenure saw the foundation of the newchix mailing list for people new to Linux; the courses mailing list used by Linux Chix to teach each other specific topics; and the grrls-only mailing list, the only list closed to male subscribers, founded by Val Henson in 2002. At around the same time, a LinuxChix IRC server was created.
The term LinuxChix refers to the organisation centered around the official website, the mailing lists and the IRC channels. The organisation has no official status and the name is used by other groups which are comparatively loosely affiliated with the original LinuxChix group, including local LinuxChix chapters which meet in person, and several national and continental groups which operate more or less independently.
In March 2007, Jenn Vesperman announced that she was retiring as the coordinator, and invited nominations for a new LinuxChix coordinator. In April 2007 Mary Gardiner was announced as the new coordinator, and planned to serve as coordinator until 2009, however she resigned in June 2007. Currently it is led by three lead volunteers known as the "Tres Chix" who are elected by popular vote. The current coordinators from August 2007 onwards are Sulamita Garcia, Akkana Peck, and Carla Schroder.
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