[Haskell-cafe] Hackage accounts and real names

[David House]

Hi,

An issue came up on #haskell recently with Hackage accounts requiring
real names. The person in question (who didn't send this email as he's
wishing to remain anonymous) applied for a Hackage account and was
turned down, as he refused to offer his real name for the username.

Those of us in the conversation thought this a bit of an odd policy,
and were wondering where this came from. It also emerged that a couple
of other people had been held back from getting Hackage accounts
because of this reason.

Seeing as it's also trivially easy to fake a name, what's the purpose
of this restriction?

Thanks,
-David