Now that it’s no longer essential to look good for a potential buyer, and none of the employees publicly involved in it are working at the company any more, maybe it is time to resolve this disgraceful saga?
I mean, really resolve it. Because so far I haven’t seen anything to refute this theory:
Monica isn’t talking about this, presumably because she can’t, and I'm not expecting her to say anything now. But I’ve spoken to a couple of legally knowledgeable acquaintances in the States and the most likely way this went down is like @LindaJeanne speculates in the comment above:
Stack Overflow sent in a lawyer to react to Monica’s defamation suit and threatened to counter-sue, which would have destroyed her financially far beyond what a Gofundme could raise
The only choice she would have been given to prevent this countersuit would probably have been to sign a non-disclosure agreement, forcing her to shut up about the entire issue forever under threat of total ruin
She was probably not, different from popular imagination, paid any money for the damage caused her by Stack Overflow's actions.
If this is how it happened, it remains a huge disgrace to this day, a dark stain on the company’s reputation that continues to alienate a part of the community.
This would probably be very easy to fix:
Work out a new agreement with Monica that includes a public apology announcement from Stack Overflow that really clears her name, while protecting the company from further legal action from Monica
Pay a reasonable amount of money as restitution.
Come on, people in charge. You all say you are big believers in justice and kindness and all that - put your money where your mouths are. It's really about time.