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Ben Noordhuis's Departure

blog.nodejs.org

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Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#11

Post by parennoob »

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-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.

The number of people I have heard saying stuff like "It was a politically sensitive PR, of course it should have been merged" is surprising. In fact, I would strongly recommend rejecting 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.

Relevant links:

[1] Original pull request: https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015

[2] Bryan's "I am going to fire Ben, even though he isn't my employee. Fired. Did I say fired yet?" blog post: http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun

[3] Issac Roth's "We'll fire Ben if he doesn't learn grammar. Haha, j/k." blog post: http://strongloop.com/strongblog/collaboration-not-derision-...

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#14

Post by mseepgood »

selmnoo wrote: post #7

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 ( http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun ) 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: https://github.com/joyent/li…

> because he refused to take a commit making language in some part of the code gender-neutral

He didn't only refuse such a commit. He actively reverted it.

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#15

Post by Lazare »

cliftonk wrote: post #6

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.

I dunno, I'd label it more as outright, actively aggressive.

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#16

Post by goldenkey »

Zikes wrote: post #9

Joyent called Ben an asshole and said they wanted to fire him over a minor grammatical preference. [1] 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. Good luck finding a replacement. [1] http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-o…

Holy crap, what a read. You have to wonder... What feminist muff is he puffing? I can't stand white knighting especially when it befalls other men in armor. Ben, you've got my sympathies and support, sorry you have to hear this immature politico-feminist-fascluckery from Joyent

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#17

Post by Lazare »

mseepgood wrote: post #14
selmnoo wrote: post #7

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 ( http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun ) 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: https://github.com/joyent/li…

> because he refused to take a commit making language in some part of the code gender-neutral He didn't only refuse such a commit. He actively reverted it.

On procedural grounds.

It hadn't been accepted, as far as Ben knew, by someone with the authority to make that decision, it didn't follow project guidelines, and the contributor hadn't signed a CLA. The revert had nothing to do with grammar and language.

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#18

Post by jbigelow76 »

selmnoo wrote: post #7

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 ( http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun ) 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: https://github.com/joyent/li…

    >Here's hoping Ben now finds a workplace that appreciates him for his talents and respects him as a person.
Did Ben leave strongloop as well? Reading between the lines regarding stepping away form Node.js vs just the responsibilities that come with being a core contributor looks ambiguous.

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#19

Post by Zikes »

mseepgood wrote: post #14
selmnoo wrote: post #7

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 ( http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun ) 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: https://github.com/joyent/li…

> because he refused to take a commit making language in some part of the code gender-neutral He didn't only refuse such a commit. He actively reverted it.

Semantics. It's the same as saying "no", and then saying "no" again.

Really, if there's one thing I thought feminists had taken to heart it's "no means no".

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#20

Post by goldenkey »

aabalkan wrote: post #10

For those who don't know the background of the story: [1] http://werd.io/2013/gendered-pronouns-in-software-a-quick-pr... [2] http://strongloop.com/strongblog/collaboration-not-derision-... As said in [2]: If Ben can’t learn, we’ll fire him. [Edit: See comment below. This is not meant literally.] that seems like the result.

They also call him an asshole.

http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun

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