Hide your real name in Open Source
medium.com
medium.com
Also the author claims that open source contributors will face personal attacks, which is certainly not new, but fails to give any concrete examples or statistics. Overall, the article provides nothing we do not know yet nor it supports its argument clearly.
Obviously, some of the people crying over CoC's may also be annoyed to learn that I look at least as much on a persons intra-personal skills when I read through their github history, as I do on their code. Github is a social network. The people there are humans. If you have shown you can communicate well with people over code, especially people you disagree with, that's a very important skill, and it's a skill you can't convey in your CV.
Regarding "wrongthink", it's generally a good idea to keep politics out of your professional GitHub account if you want to work at a place that may not align with your opinions. Or your opinions are spicy in general.
The sort of people that post on HN can usually pick their jobs, which is why I'm surprised someone here would want a job where they have to self-censor constantly. If that caveat applies to the vast majority of jobs for you maybe you should reevaluate your opinions?
Another factor to consider during interviews is some companies will say things to try and trip you up. They want to know what kind of person you are. Soft skills are always superior for coding skills. If you cannot communicate without having a childish rage fit you should not be a part of a team, you're useless to a team.
This is very true. We had to let someone go recently because of this. He'd been there about 5 months. He was getting pretty good at the job, but every time he'd make a mistake he'd go into a rage. Or he'd just show up in the morning in a bad mood and be pissy with everyone all day. On the last week he was there he flipped out on a delivery driver, twice, freaked out at my coworker and got into a big argument with him when he asked him if he could work a Saturday to help with some maintenance that needed to be done, flipped out in the middle of operating a machine after he made a mistake, walked away in the middle of it, started smashing a bunch of things and just freaking out at himself. That was when he was let go, the owner came close to calling the cops on him.
It was too bad everybody tried talking to him for months to try and get him to relax. On good days, he'd helpful, eager to learn, did well and generally seemed like a fairly decent person. But on bad days...you never knew what was going to set him off and it just got to be too much for everyone to handle.
> Or your opinions are spicy in general.
So if not anybody likes your opinion, it's your fault for having the wrong opinions...?
"If everyone hates my opinion, is that the wrong opinion to hold so dearly?"
It's certainly worth honestly considering if most people think your opinion is terrible.
It is worth being introspective, but you should keep in mind the fact that an opinion being popular has very little to do with whether it's right.
Reality is also that the vast majority of people don't care about the politics that get people ousted from OSS projects. It's more along the lines of "if a very loud minority thinks your opinion is terrible".
People have been banned from Github projects for stuff that they said on Twitter that had nothing to do with their activity in open source, because it "made other contributors feel unwelcome". If the thought police will want to dig up dirt on you, they will gladly turn to any other social media available.
That caveat doesn't apply to me now, but I'm one family emergency away from moving to a region where that caveat will apply to me. My opinions are not "spicy" they're just... ya know... opinions. Not milquetoast platitudes that shift to please the people I'm talking to.
I would rather work a job where I'm self-censoring toward 'professionalism' if the rest of my team is too, than a job where everyone is their 'authentic self' with their real world politics on display, even if the majority agree with my real world politics.
Still we're not censoring the puns, to the despair of one of the team members.
I've only heard once a feedback about my commits on Github and that was “I've checked you out on Github, cool, the other applicants didn't even have projects on it." Maybe it's a German thing, or maybe this guy is living in a bubble.
Banks are indeed one of the most secretive and protective institutions, along with a lot of other related ones in the financial sector. They also tend to have more authoritarian practices, which can explain why they're not so keen on their employees doing even remotely-related stuff outside of their work.
I had one particularly tech-savvy CEO personally reach out and try to recruit me because of my open source work. My project wasn't directly related, but he recognized the similarities between the problem domains, and that impressed me. But his wasn't a financial firm.
I can't imagine any tech-centric organization being hostile toward open source contributors, whether they're an investment bank or not. I could maybe see it on teams that aren't tech-focused and are led by old-school business types who just don't "get it". But teams where tech is their biggest asset, like electronic trading? No way. If you run into this sort of thing when applying for jobs in the financial sector, you're looking at the wrong jobs (or the wrong banks). Look for roles on electronic trading teams or HFT. The work is more challenging, and the compensation is better anyway.
Better still, apply at Susquehanna or Two Sigma, or some other place that really recognizes the value of their engineers. Stay away from huge banks like Citi.
I agree. Personally I couldn't imagine working at a company that was hostile to my open source contributions, anyway. If I was contributing to something controversial, maybe.
Of course that's a reaction coming from privilege: I can afford to turn away potential employers like that. Maybe my Github profile has turned people away. If so, I don't see it as a loss.
On the other hand, I've fairly regularly gotten contacted by recruiters pointing out they've seen I have a variety of Ruby projects on my Github, for example, so overall I'd be surprised if it is overall a bad thing for most people.
The reasoning in the article seems weak tho. I would guess the author is lashing out after a bad interview or something.
It's important that we're conscious of that privilege, because we're the ones who build the IT systems for those who don't have it.
In other words: You don't want to work there. If they see that you are busy in your time off on Github, it can only be an upside. (But note: no downside if you don't use github at all)
Amusing to see this phrased, since even before the Internet we had a perfectly cromulent word for this: handle.
You were told never to give your real name or any identifying info on the internet. It wasn't until facebook that people started using their real name in droves. Another reason to despise facebook.
When I first got on irc in '94, I often exchanged name and phone numbers with people within hours of talking to them, and more than once I met people in real life within hours of talking to them. Nobody batted an eyelid at that at the time.
The panic over people giving out their real name started first years later, especially as people started getting worried about strangers talking to children more than anything.
Most didn't.
> When I first got on irc in '94, I often exchanged name and phone numbers with people within hours of talking to them, and more than once I met people in real life within hours of talking to them.
But you didn't use your name as your nick did you? I never did. The same thing with BBS.
> The panic over people giving out their real name started first years later
No. Even before the media generated panic ( of primarily AOL ), you weren't encouraged to use your real name. Of course after you talked to people and got to know them, nothing stopped you from exchanging numbers. But that wasn't the norm.
I can't believe you brought up irc. There is a reason why in irc you used your "nick". The culture of irc was anonymity. IRC clients and many channels discouraged using your real name.
Directly counter to my experience.
> But you didn't use your name as your nick did you? I never did.
Many of us did, many didn't but left their real name readily accessible by e.g. making our e-mail visible and having Finger enabled.
> The same thing with BBS.
Most of the BBS's I used asked for real names, and from meeting people at BBS meets I know most of the people I spoke to on BBS's were truthful.
> No. Even before the media generated panic ( of primarily AOL ), you weren't encouraged to use your real name. Of course after you talked to people and got to know them, nothing stopped you from exchanging numbers. But that wasn't the norm.
Again, completely counter to my experience. You weren't "encouraged" in most cases, so much as copied what other people did, and most people around me used our real names all over the place.
> I can't believe you brought up irc. There is a reason why in irc you used your "nick". The culture of irc was anonymity. IRC clients and many channels discouraged using your real name.
Not the ones I spent most of my time on. That became more prevalent later, and in certain circles. Certainly if you were spreading warez etc., yes.
I disagree, there are many companies that actively look for Open Source contributors to hire. Sure, it's not all companies, and very few people will be having companies fight to hire you - but that's really never been the normal case. What's been the normal case is what's still happening - many companies are hiring contributors to the projects they depend on.
> Do you know what I’ve been asked by every investment bank I’ve ever interviewed at? “we are suspicious that you are too active on github and will not commit to this job”
> The places that didn’t ask were unable to see my github profile, because of their firewall.
Ah. Okay, so investment banking as an industry are shying away from Open Source contributors. That might well be true, I have no experience in that industry. But, importantly, my lack of experience in that industry (and, many other industries!) prevents me from making blanket statements..
Edit: HN quote formatting gets me every time.
And god forbid you want to use a tool distributed through github, which at this point is most of them
Good, let them keep getting hacked because they prefer to hire the guy who has a piece of paper or three, and knows a guy. Fucking bankers.
It got me my first talk on a conference, got me in contact with a lot of different, very interesting opportunities and people from around the world.
Haven't seen a single disadvantage in it, yet. Not even one.
Does the author understand what kind of "commitment" they are talking about? Do they understand why investment banks pay the kind of money they pay for software developers?
If it were me, they'd be damn right that I'm not "committed". Why do you write open source software? Why do you work for charities? Because you are free to do so!
In my youth, I gave up my freedom in order to work. I will never do that again. It was a mistake for me. I think it is probably a mistake for anyone who loves their freedom. It's a mistake for people who want to be free to help others when others need help, not when the office allows it (which will be never, BTW).
Yeah, you can sell out, and for some people it's probably incredibly worth it. But if you judge the value of your life by what you do rather than what you receive in compensation, then I really don't think you'll be happy with that trade-off.
YMMV.
I am wondering whether the author of the blogpost considered the option that what they were telling him was just an excuse. Maybe the problem is not his OSS but the fact that the author behaviour in the community is not exactly as brilliant as he may think and that made him a controversial figure?
Of course, being anonymous means you can start any flame you like, treat people as you want and get away with it; not sure that that's the best way to achieve less toxic communities anyway.
Also, what would be the reaction of a recruiter reading a resume that lists e.g. 5 different github profiles? I doubt the recruiter would think "very smart of him". More likely, they would be left wondering if the applicant is self-important, a tinfoil hat wearer, or an outright liar. At any rate, probably someone they wouldn't be inclined to hire.
They will have to jump hoops only if you dont want them see it. Otherwise you just include link in your CV and they dont have to jump anything.
> Also, what would be the reaction of a recruiter reading a resume that lists e.g. 5 different github profiles? I doubt the recruiter would think "very smart of him". More likely, they would be left wondering if the applicant is self-important, a tinfoil hat wearer, or an outright liar. At any rate, probably someone they wouldn't be inclined to hire.
I can see why recruiter would think "weird", I dont see why he would think "self-important, a tinfoil hat wearer, or an outright liar".
If you apply for a niche position with <10 applicants in total, yes they will jump. But if they are flooded with applications, no they won't; they can safely bet that there is another applicant with similar qualifications and more accessible OSS presence.
> I can see why recruiter would think "weird", I dont see why he would think "self-important, a tinfoil hat wearer, or an outright liar".
That's just a few different shades of "weird" as a person.
The resume is all the recruiter knows about you at that moment. Do you really want any "WTF"/"weird" spots in it? This is setting up the board for the recruiter to make the (subconscious) deduction "weird resume" -> "this may be a weird person". They may or may not do it, but it surely won't get your resume any points.
That is quite unlikely. You are overestimating amount of programmers with non minimal oss presence. And, if they are flooded they won't search you by name. They might maybe click on cv link.
> That's just a few different shades of "weird" as a person.
That is small price for having control, really.
I admit it, I'd be the world's worst spy. Too honest and too clumsy.
Privacy is dead. I think that being public allows you to control what’s being public and that’s the best we can do.
Someone harassing you because of your OC contribs? Burn their (metaphorical) house down.