For those who don't know what's going on: Joyent made a blogpost calling Ben, (one of _THE_ most prolific contributors to nodjs), an asshole (<a href="http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun" rel="nofollow">http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun</a>) and said they'd fire him if he'd been working for them, because he refused to take a commit making language in some part of the code gender-neutral.
Here's Ben's last response to the whole ordeal: <a href="https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015#issuecomment-29568172" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015#issuecomment-29568...</a><p>A lot of people speculated that this is part of a dance Joyent is doing to assert itself as a big cloud player. I don't know how much truth there is to that, but as a general spectator I feel like wanting to remark that Bryan Cantrill only fanned the fire here in all of this. And so perhaps there should be some weight given to the fact that a worker of a company that's a competitor to Joyent just quit, arguably due to Joyent's rough play -- if Joyent had approached the matter differently, carefully, sensitively, there likely would have been a different conclusion to this. But now it's done, and pretty much every participating party in this whole thing came out looking like a loser, Joycent, Strongloop, the whole nodejs scene. Here's hoping Ben now finds a workplace that appreciates him for his talents and respects him as a person.
People who want to ruthlessly enforce their personal version of political correctness (Bryan Cantrill in particular, and Ben's employer Issac Roth, who seems to have competed with Bryan in a no-<i>I</i>-am-the-bigger-asshole contest) forced an important core committer out because he tried to enforce accepted commit policy. This is a particularly aggressive brand of feminism, one that I have mostly seen in the USA. It seems to be mostly dictated by people pushing through their changes based on their ideology at any cost, by branding anyone who opposes them as discriminatory oppressors.<p>The number of people I have heard saying stuff like "It was a politically sensitive PR, <i>of course</i> it should have been merged" is surprising. In fact, I would strongly recommend <i>rejecting</i> all such politically sensitive PRs on the basis that they are deliberately controversial, and asking the submitter politely to put their changes in a PR with more significant contributions that they submit to the project.<p>Relevant links:<p>[1] Original pull request: <a href="https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015</a><p>[2] Bryan's "I am going to fire Ben, even though he isn't my employee. Fired. Did I say <i>fired</i> yet?" blog post: <a href="http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun" rel="nofollow">http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun</a><p>[3] Issac Roth's "We'll fire Ben if he doesn't learn grammar. Haha, j/k." blog post: <a href="http://strongloop.com/strongblog/collaboration-not-derision-in-the-node-community/" rel="nofollow">http://strongloop.com/strongblog/collaboration-not-derision-...</a>
This is so sad on many different levels. A guy who clearly liked working on this module has to make a choice to walk (which is his choice) because people get offended by pronouns. I seriously don't like where all this is headed: where he, she, they are all NEEDED so people don't get offended. This is the whole christmas thing all over again, and it needs to be enforced by society that just because you don't like something and it "offends" you then it doesn't mean that people can't/won't do it. in this case, a very popular project loses a great contributor but how long before other things like this starts happening because people are "offended" by little things. Good job on Ben for standing on for whats right, and hope more people take his route and say enough is enough.
Wow. Joyent certainly came out looking childish and pedantic to go so far as publishing a blog posturing and name calling[1]. I am at a loss to even comprehend why this amount of feminist alliance was even required by Bryan Cantrill, or why even such a public naming and shaming is being advocated by Joyent as a company. I'm not on the Joyent hate wagon but they certainly come out of this looking hilariously immature.<p>@bnoordhuis if you're reading this, I've never used libuv as a developer, but you obviously worked hard on the project. I'm sorry you had to felt forced to give it up over some blog post from a company I once believed to be reputable.<p>[1]: <a href="http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun" rel="nofollow">http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun</a>
[1a]: mirror: <a href="https://gist.github.com/anonymous/3051faface454d516929/raw/3fe5038504f29d3310db272d078197c4ef7132d8/gistfile1.txt" rel="nofollow">https://gist.github.com/anonymous/3051faface454d516929/raw/3...</a>
The last time this was discussed the story was buried pretty quickly.<p>My comment was pertinent to drama and the community, it sort of got reinforced a bit more now so I'll just repost. Sorry for anyone who already read it already.<p>---<p>My understanding of Node.JS and libuv community is as an outsider. I don't follow what's going on unless it is on the front page of HN once in a while and other forums.<p>But one impression I get from Node.JS and its surrounding community is arrogance and immaturity. This is from top to down -- companies sponsoring it (Joyent) and many of its vocal proponents. I see plenty of energy, enthusiasm, but mixed with immaturity. "We don't know what are doing, but darn it! we will be very vocal and do it with lots of enthusiasm".<p>One guy doesn't want to commit a trivial change. It blows up into a media shitstorm. Reverted commits. Joyent's reaction is what surprised me -- "While we would fire Ben over this". This guy doesn't even work for them. Hypothetically firing people, hmm, so committed to Women's Rights, they are hypothetically hiring, and firing this person on the spot. Have they talked to him in private? StrongLoop, a company I never heard of until this point, is a bit more mature, that's good to see, but even they couldn't resist the veiled threat.<p>What is sad, as a whole this episode just reinforced the (hopefully wrong) stereotype I have of the community. Joyent instead of helping the community (which I think they thought they did by writing that blog post), are hurting it.
Buying into and spending time and money learning a platform/language is also an implicit buy in/participation in the community. So far it screams to me "stay away". Hopefully it will grow up at some point.<p>---
Joyent's decision to publicly shame one of Node's largest contributors with a passive-aggressive blog post instead of approaching him privately speaks volumes about their maturity.
Joyent called Ben an asshole and said they wanted to fire him over a minor grammatical preference. [1]<p>But let's "please respect [their] wishes to let this issue rest", because it's not like we need an apology or any sort of reassurance from the company that owns a rising star of technology that we're supposed to invest our time and money in.<p>Good luck finding a replacement.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun" rel="nofollow">http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun</a>
I find myself quite saddened by the whole affair.<p>I am a big fan of Node.js (though I spend as much time or more with Clojure/JVM these days). Over the past year+, I've been very impressed with the tech coming out of Joyent and the engineering team/s led by Bryan Cantrill.<p>Without intending to be inflammatory, I must say that I found Bryan's blog post regarding pronouns and assholes to be unprofessional and disturbing.<p>I asked Mikeal Rogers[1] about his thoughts regarding the ethical limits of "unacceptance" policies/campaigns within developer communities and workplaces[2], and I would be interested to read the HN crowd's feedback as well.<p>[1] <a href="https://github.com/mikeal" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/mikeal</a><p>[2] <a href="https://gist.github.com/mikeal/7724521" rel="nofollow">https://gist.github.com/mikeal/7724521</a>
That happens when you publicly shame and demonize your core contributors.<p>Joyent has royally fucked up there, and if I was buying services from them, I'd have stopped now.<p>They didn't have to like his opinions, but this could have been handled much more amicably (maybe some "agree to disagree" and "we overrule you on this specific issue, no hard feelings").<p>Instead they chose the nuclear option, not only publicly blogging about how wrong they think Ben was, but actually fantasizing about firing him.<p>This is what happens when you're flat-out denying the Holocaust here in Germany. But for standing on the "wrong side" of how to handle gernder pronouns? Please...
This is the same thing I'd do if I've faced something like this.<p>All I have to say is Node community is fool enough to lose a talent like Ben.<p>I've got $250 credits from Joyent as a gift for Node Knockout. I will never it and never suggest any of my clients to choose Joyent.
Although Ben could have handled this better, it's quite obvious that this is just a strategically motivated witch hunt by Joyent. Their actions are vicious and completely out of proportion.<p>Sidenote: In Ben's native language, using gender neutral pronouns is considerably more contrived and artificial, and therefor not a regular subject of debate when it comes to gender equality.
I can't imagine ever wanting to work for Bryan Cantrill or Joyent or even contribute to node.js in any capacity.<p>I encourage Cantrill and Joyent to think about their obligations as founder and employer to their own employees. Ben was not one of their employees, but the callous remarks, the callout culture, the threat of immediate firing over something so trivial speaks to a deep misunderstanding of the modern role of employer and employee.<p>Cantrill's remarks were shameful. That Joyent didn't walk them back egregious.
In the recent weeks I've seend a few businesses make stupid statements on their websites and on social media. As a business owner I just don't understand why they're doing that. What do you achieve when you call your customer/associate/employee a(n) asshole/liar on your website?<p>I haven't heard of Joyent before this whole thing started. And to be honest, I still don't know what they do, but I'm pretty sure I don't want to do any business with them.
To everyone who felt polarized by this issue, I want you to take a second and feel shame.<p>This was such of little consequence, honestly. This wasn't some massive, elaborately planned, misogynistic plot. This was a matter of few pronouns in a random software project.<p>Stupid crusades like this do damage. We all need to pick our battles carefully. And not doing as much should collectively be viewed as a bad thing.<p>If you were mounting up on a crusade about this little issue, let me be clear: you should feel bad.<p>I love tech's progressive thoughts on individual rights and respect and firm adherence to equality, but sometimes the tech industry loses sight of the forest for the trees, and we should collectively rally against that habit.<p>Now, we lost an amazing Node contributor.
Because of this incident (and Joyent response on it), Isaac Roth from StrongLoop and others are asking for a neutral home for project:<p><a href="https://groups.google.com/d/msg/nodejs/mqSf47HhmyY/Wl8Od9vb1QwJ" rel="nofollow">https://groups.google.com/d/msg/nodejs/mqSf47HhmyY/Wl8Od9vb1...</a>
This is the kind of thing that helps me understand why people don’t want to contribute to open source:<p>You can get flamed just for making code public [1]. Contributing to someone else’s project and missing the bar for quality is one thing, but this person _shared some potentially useful code_ and several Internet-famous people took a dump on her project. Wrapping your head around software is already hard enough without having to worry about getting trolled or potentially destroying future opportunities.<p>Or the case we have here: a couple of actions get taken out of context and have meaning read into them where there wasn’t any, and now people think you’re a misogynist.<p>Why contribute and deal with all of that potential noise, when you can do _just about anything else_ and not have to worry?<p>[1]: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5106767" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5106767</a>
For those who don't know the background of the story:<p>[1] <a href="http://werd.io/2013/gendered-pronouns-in-software-a-quick-primer" rel="nofollow">http://werd.io/2013/gendered-pronouns-in-software-a-quick-pr...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://strongloop.com/strongblog/collaboration-not-derision-in-the-node-community/" rel="nofollow">http://strongloop.com/strongblog/collaboration-not-derision-...</a><p>As said in [2]:<p><pre><code> If Ben can’t learn, we’ll fire him. [Edit: See comment
below. This is not meant literally.]
</code></pre>
that seems like the result.
Did actually any women complain? Cause all I saw was bunch of guys arguing about how awful it is to use gender pronouns. I wouldn't care if all examples were written with "her". Cause that's absolutely unimportant. As I understand there's more serious, real issues with gender equality, like: salary difference, not promoting women, entering barrier, etc. Not damn "he" in doc examples. And as Ben mentioned he actually do some real things: 'I volunteer in a mentorship program that gets young people - especially young women - involved in technology.'
Too bad they all didn't talked it over privately in the very beginning and resolved the issue.
That retaliation post by Bryan Cantrill only hurts Joyent's reputation in my eyes.
Joyent,<p>Please do the classy thing and have Isaac create a NodeJS organization on Github and move the project to that organization under his stewardship.<p>With great power came great responsibility and using the Joyent corporate blog to excoriate one of the community's most valuable contributors is the path to the dark side.<p><a href="http://substack.net/images/coronation.png" rel="nofollow">http://substack.net/images/coronation.png</a>
"Many of you already have expressed your opinion regarding recent drama, and I'd like to ask that you please respect our wishes to let this issue rest, so that we can all focus on the road forward."<p>Sure, please don't talk about this anymore since it can harm to Joyent's reputation and business.
Gender inequality is the world's greatest human rights challenge, but Ben Noordhuis is not the problem. This was idiotic politically correct micromanaging that deserved the response initially given to the PR: "not interested in trivial changes like that".
I already had done so, but it makes me feel even better about dropping node for go. Not just because of the increased sanity go brings to my codebase (no more callback hell, which frankly was a mess even with node addon libraries). Now I can also feel good about not tacitly supporting Joyent, way to make good people leave.
Ridiculous. First Ryan Dahl, now Ben.<p>Why does the guy who wrote the blog post still have a job? That is the most unprofessional post I've read on a company blog.
Using gender-neutral pronouns in English is the right thing to do...but this guy is a native Dutch speaker. Seems really insensitive and hegemonic to have jumped down his throat like that, considering.