[brendangregg]

In the article I included my guess about real cause for this: Sun's assumption that any good work had to be from a Sun employee. I'd guess the sequence of events was:

  - DTrace is the new hotness, we need it in our UI.
  - Everyone's using Brendan's tools, let's add them (so far, so good).
  - Oh, why do they say copyright Brendan? He made a mistake: Sun employees should be putting copyright Sun on them. (THIS is the mistake, as I wasn't a Sun employee).
  - I'll just delete his name and stick copyright Sun on them all.
  - Developer gets picked to go do a world tour (and may genuinely not know what happened).

As for how I was treated: I guessed why in the article as well, the low-key introduction as is the norm in Australia.

[mnw21cam]

As for how you were treated - I don't think the low-key introduction can be fully blamed. The VIP should have known that smart people exist in various places around the world, and sooner or later one does bump into them. When you meet someone knowing absolutely nothing about them (and an introduction doesn't count), and then they start talking intelligently about a topic, then you have one data point (that they have talked intelligently), and you should draw an appropriate conclusion from that. It sounds like the VIP had serious preconception issues.

[throwawaye3735]

I worked for a government research lab and it was the same, only work coming from inside the lab was respected and contractor work was looked down upon.

That's really interesting, since you were so close to Sun they actually thought you were a Sun employee!