A software engineer named Julie Ann Horvath sent shock waves across Silicon Valley over the weekend, after she left the high-profile tech startup GitHub, saying that she was the victim of sexism and a hostile work environment.

GitHub's online service – a place for hosting and managing software projects that fosters extreme collaboration among participants – is a mainstay among Silicon Valley developers, and over the past few years, with its unusually flat structure and egalitarian attitudes, the company itself had become a symbol for a new, more inclusive tech industry. But after Horvath's departure from the company, many started questioning – once again – whether Silicon Valley has made much progress in the way it treats women, particularly women developers.

"I've been harassed by 'leadership' at GitHub for two years," Horvath announced on Twitter this past Friday. "And I am the first developer to quit." And she later told TechCrunch that she had been harassed both by the wife of one of the co-founders of the company and by a male employee whose advances she rebuked, and that company leadership had failed to address the situation. (She did not immediately respond to our requests to discuss the matter).

Horvath didn't name the GitHub co-founder or engineer in question, but the company has suspended both, according to a blog post from co-founder and CEO Chris Wanstrath. "The founder’s wife discussed in the media reports has never had hiring or firing power at GitHub and will no longer be permitted in the office," Wanstrath wrote.

The news of Horvath's departure was particularly surprising and upsetting since she was the organizer of a series of speaking events called "Passion Projects," meant to encourage more involvement from women in the tech industry. Many responded to the situation by vowing to switch to a competing service, such as BitBucket, run by a startup called Atlassian. But others have reacted in even broader ways, hoping to call attention to much wider ethics issues across Silicon Valley.

One group, for instance, has launched a service called Culture Offset, which lets you "offset" questionable ethical practices from companies such as GitHub in much the same way you'd offset your use of fossil fuels and other power sources that harm the environment. If you use GitHub, for instance, you can offset the Horvath situation by donating money to organizations dedicated increasing opportunities for groups who are under represented in the tech industry. The site includes donation links for several organizations, including the Ada Developers Academy, Black Girls Code, and LGBTech.org.

Part of the problem, the group says, is that GitHub has become such a large part of the software world, that you use it in some way by shifting your allegiance to almost any software company out there. And if even you aren't using GitHub in any way, you can't be really sure of the ethics practices by the companies you use. But the broader message is that Silicon Valley still needs to change – in so many ways.