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I agree with most of this, but I'm curious about the specific case of Github. If I join a company, are there any big dangers to just having them add my personal

I agree with most of this, but I'm curious about the specific case of Github. If I join a company, are there any big dangers to just having them add my personal GH account to their organizations or private repos, and then if I leave the company they can remove me again? This seems to be how a lot of developers in my orbit do things. (I mean any dangers at the account/permissions/privacy level - separate from "having two separate accounts might be better for work/life balance" sorts of concerns.)

hoten 5y ago
No. Having a separate GitHub is just a pain. GitHub provides adequate separation itself (you can add multiple emails and configure notifications accordingly)
- barsonme 5y ago
  What’s difficult about it? Personally, I like knowing that my personal GitHub credentials stay only on my personal devices and my work credentials stay only on my work devices. I never have to worry about the two mixing and any problems that might arise.
  - derefr 5y ago
    Presuming you also contribute to FOSS projects, and that you additionally use the FOSS you work on personally at work, there will come a point at which a bug you find at work will require you to fix the upstream FOSS project on your work laptop. At that point, getting the git-commit attribution correct gets annoying.
    - XorNot 5y ago
      This isn't too hard - Git supports folder path separated config settings, so usually I just have a "foss" and "work" profile. More annoying can be commit signing, but this is actually something GPG has baked right into it - I issue and sign a new key with my work email address while I'm there, and when I quit revoke the key as superceded (and set the expiry to roughly my contract renewal period/performance eval period). The real problem is corporate IT doesn't understand encryption or signing beyond how their vendors pitch it too them as "secure" so trying to extend any of this to actually support business processes is a losing battle.
    - barsonme 5y ago
      Well, if I work on it at work for work then the attribution should be under my work email. Otherwise, it should be under my personal email. So far, the only problem I've ever had with separate accounts (including contributing to FOSS) is one time (once!) somebody selected the wrong email alias to review a CL. That took all of (literally) 10 seconds to fix.
  - fenomas 5y ago
    Separating accounts is a fine principle, but for anything social (github, twitter..) some people have good reasons for doing their work from their existing personal accounts. E.g. evangelists, folks in devrel, those whose jobs include contributing to OSS or participating in open standards, and so on.
Silhouette 5y ago
There have definitely been cases where hosting services have allowed someone to link a personal account into a corporate one belonging to their employer, then at the end of the employment the corporate account has been given control of everything within the personal account. I don't recall whether GitHub specifically was one of the services mentioned, but I would avoid creating that kind of link on any hosting service where I had my own data. Maintaining clear separation between personal and professional devices and accounts is a sound policy and there are very few sensible reasons not to follow it.
- kkiinnpptt 5y ago
  I recall pulling out of some AWS signup last minute because of this.
- fenomas 5y ago
  Ah, great point. I remember hearing about a case like that, though I also don't remember which specific service it was.
ashtonkem 5y ago
My last couple jobs have been setup with GitHub or GitLab enterprise, which is on-prem and not connected to my personal account in any way.
deleted 5y ago
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hoten 5y ago

No. Having a separate GitHub is just a pain. GitHub provides adequate separation itself (you can add multiple emails and configure notifications accordingly)

barsonme 5y ago
What’s difficult about it? Personally, I like knowing that my personal GitHub credentials stay only on my personal devices and my work credentials stay only on my work devices. I never have to worry about the two mixing and any problems that might arise.
- derefr 5y ago
  Presuming you also contribute to FOSS projects, and that you additionally use the FOSS you work on personally at work, there will come a point at which a bug you find at work will require you to fix the upstream FOSS project on your work laptop. At that point, getting the git-commit attribution correct gets annoying.
  - XorNot 5y ago
    This isn't too hard - Git supports folder path separated config settings, so usually I just have a "foss" and "work" profile. More annoying can be commit signing, but this is actually something GPG has baked right into it - I issue and sign a new key with my work email address while I'm there, and when I quit revoke the key as superceded (and set the expiry to roughly my contract renewal period/performance eval period). The real problem is corporate IT doesn't understand encryption or signing beyond how their vendors pitch it too them as "secure" so trying to extend any of this to actually support business processes is a losing battle.
  - barsonme 5y ago
    Well, if I work on it at work for work then the attribution should be under my work email. Otherwise, it should be under my personal email. So far, the only problem I've ever had with separate accounts (including contributing to FOSS) is one time (once!) somebody selected the wrong email alias to review a CL. That took all of (literally) 10 seconds to fix.
- fenomas 5y ago
  Separating accounts is a fine principle, but for anything social (github, twitter..) some people have good reasons for doing their work from their existing personal accounts. E.g. evangelists, folks in devrel, those whose jobs include contributing to OSS or participating in open standards, and so on.

Silhouette 5y ago

There have definitely been cases where hosting services have allowed someone to link a personal account into a corporate one belonging to their employer, then at the end of the employment the corporate account has been given control of everything within the personal account. I don't recall whether GitHub specifically was one of the services mentioned, but I would avoid creating that kind of link on any hosting service where I had my own data. Maintaining clear separation between personal and professional devices and accounts is a sound policy and there are very few sensible reasons not to follow it.

kkiinnpptt 5y ago
I recall pulling out of some AWS signup last minute because of this.
fenomas 5y ago
Ah, great point. I remember hearing about a case like that, though I also don't remember which specific service it was.

ashtonkem 5y ago

My last couple jobs have been setup with GitHub or GitLab enterprise, which is on-prem and not connected to my personal account in any way.

deleted 5y ago

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