Comes off as pretty childish not to address the io.elephant in the room. EDIT: I think that it's safe to say 90+% of people who clicked on "Node.js: Next Chapter" did so because they wanted to see something about io.js & how Joyent is planning to move forward.
I mean in the "lalalalala I can't heeaaarrr yoooouuu" sense. Pretending that there is no rift or that the author isn't aware of it, or that there isn't (for lack of a better term) a "competing" fork of node or that the timing of this change is in no way related to that fact... it strains credulity past the breaking point. Someone being in denial of/refusing to speak to salient facts that are obvious to everyone present-- that's what made me think "childish." Like a kid who tries to pretend she didn't eat the chocolate when its all over her face :p Perhaps "denial" is a less loaded term, but it doesn't communicate my reaction as well. :)
What would he really need say about io.js at this point? Him stepping down means he's no longer involved in the decision. And any comment from him might color the debate, and/or limit the next lead's ability to bring their own opinion.
He did kind of address it. I got the feeling that they were more focused on the business side of things, rather than the flashy tech stuff. Stabilizing, localizing, figuring out how it's being used, etc.
As a company who uses Node in production, those things are important to us, more so than the extras the io.js team wanted to add.
More and more people are using io.js now, and they have more releases, using a stable engine, already reached v2, I'm sure others will add more to this list.
Some important people from Node forked it into io.js. They want to release quicker and stay on the cutting edge. IO.js is managed by consensus, whereas Node is governed by Joyent. Some were upset at the slow pace of node's progress, accusing Joyent of holding it back for "compatibility" reasons.