I am applying on multiple new careers, and I came across a question on one of them titled "Work References":

> 
> Name:  
> 
>  Phone:  
> 
>  Worked Together At:
> 
> 
> 

Now these are limited for me (unless I use multiple persons from the same employer) so naturally I filled in what I could, and continued on. (Possibly going to hurt in the long run, but it's what I have at my disposal.)

My question is: as a contributor to an open-source project(s), can I use **one** other contributor / maintainer as a work reference? Is that an appropriate response to this particular hiring question? I am speaking of *non*-superiors in regards to the context of the hiring question asked. I.e. coworkers, etc.

More context: the project I'm interested in using affects multiple users (at least more than one) and has the possibility of becoming more popular in the future. It also demonstrates knowledge of and experience with vital technologies to the particular field I am applying for, and, as I have been directly responsible for closing multiple issues on the GitHub repository, demonstrates that I have an intimate relationship with the project (and other users).

We also (regularly) communicate through a Stack Exchange chat room which we use for white-boarding, brainstorming and discussion of the task at hand, *besides* the GitHub issues/commits. However: *I have never had face-to-face or direct verbal communication with them.* We have also **never** done pair-programming. We *have* worked on the same portion of code at the same time and merged each of our work together through the chat room, commits, issues and pull requests.

The problem is, if this is acceptable, how do I fill out the form (considering I am in the United States, and some of the possibilities may be in other countries)?

> 
> **Name:** An Awesome Contributor  
> 
> **Phone:** xxx-xxx-xxxx  
> 
> **Worked Together At:** Awesome Open Source Project X
> 
> 
> 

I only intend to include **one** Open-Source Software Contributor in my work-references, until I build a larger list of them. I can get two others very easily via previous employment, but the third would **have** to come from one of the two same employers. (This would mean that I would have two references from company Y, and one from company Z.)