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Is there an equivalent to the "Alan Smithee" pseudonym for a developer? (lemmy.world)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/programming@programming.dev
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In the movie industry, directors sometimes sign their as "Alan Smithee" to indicate they don't recognize the movie as their own work.
This can happen for various reasons, one well known example is David Lynch for Dune (1984) who didn't want his name associated with the movie since he didn't have the final cut.

Is there an equivalent for the software industry to indicate one wants to distance themself from a commit or a project they don't approve?

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[–] 18 points 11 months ago

Software very rarely has an individual's vision behind it in the same way movies do. At least publicly. There are a small handful of game developers you could say that about, but outside of games the only time a single creator's vision is relevant in that way is when they also do have creative control over it, and so the need for such a pseudonym doesn't exist.

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