You're right - I didn't see the private correspondence - Bryan certainly never mentioned it before now.
I certainly don't feel ashamed about calling out the bullying behaviour of Joyent. It's never ok to call someone an arsehole on a company blog about a competitor's employee, let alone call on his sacking. And who knows what the content of that nasty note was - perhaps he called Bryan an arsehole, perhaps he said that he thought that the change was rubbish, maybe he was passed off that the change wasn't discussed, maybe he thought that it was gasp a beat up, or maybe he swore at Cantrell for being a jerk?
Whatever it was, it's irrelevant. It's not the approach an open source leader should take, it certainly didn't concubine anyone about gender neutral language, it was hostile, ungracious, gave Ben Noordius no way of graciously apologising (had he wanted to) and it led to unnecessary schisms in the project.
All up, Bryan looks like a bully, Joyent look pompous and overbearing, the reasonable debate about gender equality is obscured by the abusive language and tone of the post, Ben Noordius appears to have been wronged, and a nuanced debate about gender neutral language is rather appallingly sidetracked by a man who uses dominant and crude language to ram his pint across - most likely due to political and personal reasons.
I certainly don't feel ashamed about calling out the bullying behaviour of Joyent. It's never ok to call someone an arsehole on a company blog about a competitor's employee, let alone call on his sacking. And who knows what the content of that nasty note was - perhaps he called Bryan an arsehole, perhaps he said that he thought that the change was rubbish, maybe he was passed off that the change wasn't discussed, maybe he thought that it was gasp a beat up, or maybe he swore at Cantrell for being a jerk?
Whatever it was, it's irrelevant. It's not the approach an open source leader should take, it certainly didn't concubine anyone about gender neutral language, it was hostile, ungracious, gave Ben Noordius no way of graciously apologising (had he wanted to) and it led to unnecessary schisms in the project.
All up, Bryan looks like a bully, Joyent look pompous and overbearing, the reasonable debate about gender equality is obscured by the abusive language and tone of the post, Ben Noordius appears to have been wronged, and a nuanced debate about gender neutral language is rather appallingly sidetracked by a man who uses dominant and crude language to ram his pint across - most likely due to political and personal reasons.