But, doesn't it follow that you wouldn't know of these great programmers precisely because of the fact that they only code at work. You wouldn't have visibility

But, doesn't it follow that you wouldn't know of these great programmers precisely because of the fact that they only code at work. You wouldn't have visibility of them unless you worked with them... and I suspect that for most of us the number of other programmers we work directly with over our careers is somewhere around 100 - 200 (Just a guess based on how many I work with directly and how many times I'm likely to change employers)... That's a very small slice of all of the programmers... Though it occurs to me that participating in OSS would allow you to work with far more developers than you would otherwise.Though I'd argue that it isn't really as direct contact as the workplace.