I take it Joyent employees will live in fear of being fired for not being politically correct from now on, if they weren't already.
tl;dr: you couldn't be more wrong.
The long version requires a crucial observation: this wasn't one simple mistake, made in haste, ignorance, or confusion. This was a deliberate action to revert to exclusionary language. Speculating on the precise motivation strikes me as pointless; it's the action itself that is problematic.
At Joyent, I have room to make mistakes, and enough respect among my colleagues that I can take corrections without misgivings. Deliberate and repeated "mistakes" on my part would have consequences (but surely that's the literal definition of a problem employee).
In case you aren't already one step ahead of me, here is the corollary: I am protected from the deliberate and repeatedly hostile actions of others.
So: the ability (even obligation) to speak your mind, listen to others, and be protected from bullying, exclusionary behaviour?
That, my friend, is what you call security.
Given even the remotest possibility that this was a confusion, such a public and childish telling off seems entirely unreasonable.
I appreciate you are an employee and are qualified to speak as such. But as an outsider (and a feminist), I won't touch Joyent with a bargepole after this.
@piscisaureus signed it afterwards and forced pushed it: https://twitter.com/piscisaureus/status/407022200290410496
http://venturebeat.com/2013/09/18/can-this-startup-steal-nod...
Exclusionary language is the excuse for publicly shaming an individual seen as a pain in the ass
It's clear @bcantrill does all what it takes to keep Ben Noordhuis out. It's so obvious I don't understand why people seem to be so blind
- says people should be judged by actions not intent.
- writes a post that blows things way out of proportional and implies Ben is a sexist starting with the sensational title.
- then says that Joyent doesn't need to clarify their actions because their intent was to focus on Ben's actions
I'm not sure what sort of culture you have there at Joyent, but if it's a monoculture that fully supports this sort of grossly disproportionate public escalation and aggressive behavior from anyone, especially under the company's name, then I'm happy to keep Joyent off the short list of companies I'd consider working for or with.
Surveying the facts, I'm far more inclined to believe that this event simply provided you with a convenient self-righteous excuse for Joyent to stretch the truth enough to hang what you considered to be a troublesome contributor (and competitor) with his own rope.
[edit] On top of all this, I've had to fire a number of people over the years, and always, regardless of how justified it was, I did so with a heavy heart. The fact that Bryan Cantrill would speak to gleefully of firing anyone is, if nothing else, a testament to the myopia of self-righteousness.
I note that none of the anti-PC reactionaries are giving much attention to the part about throwing a for and reverting another developer's commit, which is telling.