How much passion is there in the .NET scene anyway? It's very business oriented, I'd expect developers to be more sort of corporate and better at time reporting. It's not like you have to be a hipster to churn out spreadsheet automation scripts.
I hate hiring people and putting a price tag on them, it's a cruel world but not every job interview has to be like American Idol if you know what I mean. Of course he should try to find people that care but that doesn't mean that the people that care has to write excellent code, or that they have to write tons of open source code. They just need to deliver at work.
At the same time let's assume, for the sake of the argument, that having side coding project is the best predictor whether someone can "deliver at work". If that's the case then it's perfectly rational for an employer to look for people who do that.
Is it the case? I certainly think that when I look at someone's non trivial code, I can better tell whether he's a competent programmer than from reading a one page resume or even an hour long interview.
Important note: it's not the existence of the code that is important but an existence of good code.
I'd have certain doubts of someone who does produce lots of open-source code, insofar as that could be construed as they don't think highly enough of their own code to sell it.
(As I write I'm waiting for GCC to rebuild due to the need to fix a bug therein. That such a bug exists at this late date in a product so widely used as a foundational tool does not inspire confidence in OSS. I find such flaws tend not to occur in "closed" software, where someone is paid to polish the corners that nobody wants to.)
Also, people who do volunteer work are obviously unqualified.
I find such flaws tend not to occur in "closed" software, where someone is paid to polish the corners that nobody wants to.
"A" bug in gcc proves that open source stinks? Have you used IE6?
You also don't have to be a hipster to contribute to open source or be passionate about your craft. What makes you think he's looking for a hipster?
I'd expect that the average .NET developer is a lot less likely to be sharing code on github than the average rails developer though.