[thought_alarm]

I once joked that _why worked for an ASP.NET firm writing enterprisy middleware, and his employment contract forbid him from participating from open source projects, which is why he had to remain anonymous.

That now seems somewhat close to the truth.

Regardless, he obviously wanted to keep his real life (and perhaps his real job) isolated from the _why persona, and there are all sorts of perfectly legitimate and understandable reasons for wanting that separation. If some jackass started stalking me in the way the _why was stalked, I would be extremely pissed and would close up shop just like he did. Why that's so difficult for some people to understand, I'll never know.

Anyway, I enjoyed the article and I think he gave the perfect response to the reporter.