I'm happy to see that gender discrimination is radioactive at a big tech company, and more than happy to grammar-nerd about "they" versus "he".
But even I think this would be a silly reason to fire someone.
But even I think this would be a silly reason to fire someone.
Just to be clear, the use of the gendered pronoun isn't the issue -- it was the insistence on it, to the point of attempting to revert @izs's commit fixing the issue. To me, that transcends from rational position to unacceptably inappropriate, and it speaks well beyond a pronoun. You might say that reaction is extreme, but I would be willing to bet that you've fired people for less: I bet you have (or would) fire people for merely being an asshole. Firing someone for being such an asshole on such a small issue that in fact has broader consequences for the hostility of a work environment is actually a no-brainer.
Misogynist assholes are insidious in that they are often hard to uncover, but brutal to any women in the office. All developers are not misogynist assholes; quite the opposite, the vast majority I've worked with have been pleasant and awesome. But when that one asshole sneaks in, and nobody sees his assholery but you, it becomes an office environment of "me or him, and he has more experience and I don't want to seem to be rocking the boat... nobody else has a problem with him, maybe it's me?", then eventually I left.
I could ramble about this for a while, but it may just not be one of those things which can be easily communicated. Now, as a manager, I look for examples like this which demonstrate a person's biases, and if they don't self-correct (with prodding) I have zero compunctions with letting them go. It keeps the family healthy.
There is no question that people with negative attitudes can have a deeply destructive effect on a team and an industry in general, or that you and others have suffered because of them. But this seems to have kicked off on a real hair trigger.
How would you react to someone that writes a blog post at a moment's notice calling someone an "asshole" and saying "he should be fired", whatever the issue is?
That's where he (potentially) stepped over the line. If he were in the office it would at the very least precipitate a serious discussion. It's the refusal to acknowledge the feedback or policy which really screams out "asshole".
Again, I would need to have a relationship with him to be sure of it, but the OP did have that relationship. Assuming this wasn't the first issue, it would be even more inappropriate for him to go blabbing about that history on a random pull request, don't you think? That would just be character assassination.
I think this isn't clear cut. Certainly not clear enough cut for all this uproar.
The situations are different enough that I consider his post one which uses the opportunity to make a hypothetical point rather than one which describes a real situation. (For instance, in an office setting a first step would be to talk to the person in question. The second step would be to consider their holistic reputation in the office. Etc.)
I think a lot of people (Bryan, commenters in this thread, and the people abusing and bullying noorhuis on twitter) got hot under the collar and are retroactively trying to rationalise and explain their behaviour rather than apologising and saying "sorry we got caught up in the lynch mob". I've not seen a single answer to the question of "why are you ignoring the fact that he was following the procedure had no option".
Anyway, this has been talked to death. I'm interested in this because I empathise with the injustice of it, can't stand a witchhunt, and don't think that bullying should happen, in any of its forms. Everyone's drawn a slightly different conclusion about the people involved, we can all learn something about humanity and move on.
"@isaacs may have his commit bit but that does not mean he is at liberty to land patches at will. All patches have to be signed off by either me or Bert. Isaac, consider yourself chided."
...this would certainly be mistaken for a threat. Please choose your verbs carefully as well.