FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

While playing with my friend on my server, he can't see my name or my avatar. All that he can see is an outline when he is directly facing me. I can see his username as well as his avatar. Any ideas on how to fix this?

Your friend is probably using 0.4.3 while you're using an 0.4.4 build. Have your friend upgrade his copy. 0.4.4 users can't see the player sprite that is normally supplied by 0.4.3 and previous versions.