Pseudonyms and reputation

Posted Aug 10, 2006 12:56 UTC (Thu) by shapr (subscriber, #9077)
Parent article: Code of uncertain origin

It actually has nothing to do with the pseudonym itself. It's more about the lack of reputation.

If someone legally changed their name to that pseudonym and then sent the patch, it would be okay, if a bit weird.

I've had a similar experience on various academic websites. I've gone by the pseudonym 'shapr' since 1992. My use of that pseudonym has excluded me from some places, but most places accept it because I already have a years old established reputation under that pseudonym.

If there had been an anonymous kernel hacker from the very beginning of the Linux kernel process who had proved themself totally trustworthy, no one would question it. In summary, it's just reputation, not name.

Pseudonyms and reputation

Posted Aug 13, 2006 18:41 UTC (Sun) by alspnost (guest, #2763) [Link] (1 responses)

Possibly true - anyone remember "Thunder from the Hill" from the early 2.6 days? Not sure if we ever discovered who he really was, but he had quite a high profile on LKML if I remember.

Pseudonyms and reputation

Posted Aug 14, 2006 17:53 UTC (Mon) by shemminger (subscriber, #5739) [Link]

That was before the "Developer's Certificate of Origin" which was a lawyer response to the SCO suit.