> gender neutral, it's highly debatable whether he, him or his are also

Not in the English language. It's debated by some whether this might have a subliminal effect and reinforce social gender stereotypes (though no evidence for that hypothesis as far as I'm aware) and therefore whether masculine prepositions _should_ be treated as neutral but that's in the same category as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_spelling_reform.

There's nothing wrong with that of course and it can be an interesting hypothesis to pursue - but I find it depressing that a self-proclaimed educated and science-based open source tech community so easily engages on a witch hunt based on pure speculation.

Several centuries of linguistic evolution would disagree. Those have always been neutral, though there has been usage of singular "they" dating back to Shakespearean-era.

It is somewhat widely accepted that he/him/his is only gender-neutral in situations where the gender is ambiguous though. For example, in writing documentation.

Personally, I think it sounds weird and prefer they/one.