[tracy]

I think that business has to stay a bit neutral, because it's a place where people are thrust into. That's what etiquette is - it's a way of ensuring that different people follow a similar set of rules so that there is no friction.

If a person wishes to publish such a presentation on his blog, that's fine, but not at a conference. Imagine the presentation were about aborigines in a similar manner. It would be regarded as discriminatory, and similar rules should be used to judge sexism.

[dchest]

It's not sexism or any other -ism when it's funny.

Edit: why is everyone so easily offended nowadays? You have the right to offend and the right be offended! That's part of society. You can't stop this by making up political correctness rules.

[jgrahamc]

"You have the right to offend and the right be offended!"

It's not question of rights, it's a question of what the technology industry believes is reasonable behaviour. My belief is that this presentation and the Rails leadership's response to it was way out of line. Martin Fowler's SmutOnRails post shows that he has similar thoughts.

[nonrecursive]

Did you read the article? Martin Fowler addresses your comment. I'd like to see what you have to say in response to his thoughts on how such an attitude would lead to a community's decline.

[dchest]

I don't understand the whole community leadership thinks so and so thing. So what? If you don't like them or think they'll doing something bad with community, create your own community! Or assign another person to be your "community leader". Why follow someone you think has a different view? Who cares what kind of person is the language/framework creator? Why can't there be two or three Ruby/Rails communities: one that likes porn, another one that hates porn, etc? What's the problem? Stop fighting with someone's views.