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Comment by lucianp | Hacker News Reader

Personally, I don't like the idea of a GitHub/OSS resume. While for others this is great, it does not work for everyone. Many of us are not able to contribute to open source projects...

How many professionals are asked by their future employer about the work they do for free in their spare time? Would you ask a doctor how many patients he/she treated for free? Or a lawyer how many cases he/she did for free in their spare time? I don't think so...

By all means, I think contributing back to the community is a noble, great thing to do (and we should all strive to do it), but this should not be considered the sole measure of one's technical skills.

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> Personally, I don't like the idea of a GitHub/OSS resume. While for others this is great, it does not work for everyone. Many of us are not able to contribute to open source projects...

Of course, not everyone can. But likewise, not everyone can go to college and get a degree in computer science, which is generally pretty important for one's resume.

Open source contributions on github should not be the sole or even most important measure of one's technical skills, and neither should having a college degree. But the more options there are to prove one's skills, the better a chance talented people have.

In other words: For those that can't afford to go to college, but are good at programming, github can make the hiring process more fair.

No, but I do care about what cases my attorney takes on pro bono or what community service my doctor participates in. It goes to showing what one does to give back to the community, whether it's geographically (putting your volunteer/civic organizations on your resume) or professionally (putting your GitHub account on your resume).

Having a doctor or lawyer who gives back is important to a lot of people, and I'm sure that translates into wanting to hire employees who give back to their communities as well.

Yes, I agree. But I'm not sure that for a doctor or a lawyer there is the same pressure to "give back to the community" as for a software developer.

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