That's a very fair question. When I first presented my corporate open source anti-patterns talk at FISL in 2012[1][2], I closed by saying that I was certain that we (Joyent) were making mistakes, and that they would have to come back in 2022 to hear what they were. Suffice it to say that after the developments of the last year -- which include not just the io.js fork but also us open sourcing our entire stack[3] -- I'm really looking forward to doing that update, and hope to do it much earlier than 2022. ;)

To answer your question: no, I was not overruled -- it's been clear to me for quite some time that node.js would be best served by a foundation. That said, getting the mechanics of that foundation established has taking (is taking) a long time (and, it must be said, involves a lot of hard, thankless work from a lot of people). Foundations might feel "easy", but they aren't: 501(c)(3) organizations are highly regulated entities that require not just a lot of groundwork and forethought but extensive maintenance. Fortunately, we have made great progress (and we have built a terrific collection of founding members), and we are getting the node.js community what it needs: a foundation that can assure the consensus-driven advancement of the technology, in perpetuity.

[1] http://www.slideshare.net/bcantrill/corporate-open-source-an...

[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhgXQFk9noI

[3] https://www.joyent.com/blog/sdc-and-manta-are-now-open-sourc...