They publicly stated they will merge back in upstream eventually all being well. They're doing it for the good of Node.js, not to create a rift and divide the community's efforts.

IIRC the Node Forward initiative was more explicitly focussed on merging back than io.js is. The subtext of io.js seems to be "we'll move forward with or without Node moving foward with us".

Yup. Also because Joyent asked that Node Forward not use the "node" term, even though it was in public domain a lot longet than Joyent's been around.