I'm still mad about the Brendan Eich thing. Like, mad. I'm totally fine with anybody pursuing whatever kind of political agenda they want, but at the moment you start to derail real progress, the moment you attack one of the best organizations who has literally been busting its ass for the last decade to change the world for no profit...
Well, you declared war. I think this whole debacle should be a rallying cry that we're not going to accept this kind of bullying anymore.
The worst part is, the progressive platform has some really important things to say about the way we live. We're not an equal society yet. We still have more changes we need to make to secure the freedom and happiness of everybody, especially groups that have been historically marginalized.
All the more reason to shut down the bullies who have domineered the narrative, produced nothing but useless bickering, and have sought nothing but divisiveness at every turn in the everlasting quest for more pageviews. I'm looking at you, Gawker.
Don't tolerate this any more. Brendan Eich was just one casualty. It's time to start sticking up for ourselves.
Sorry, but "sticking up" for what exactly? Eich's defenders seem to treat him like a child...like, he doesn't know how to phrase a statement like, "I'm against civil unions, not gays, which is why I donated to Prop 8". This isn't about Eich being punished for a "mistake" back in 2008, his detractors are unhappy that Eich does not believe that Prop 8 was a mistake, back in 2008 and today, six years later.
I'm not going to get into a debate about whether Prop 8 was right or wrong. But don't treat this like it's a witch hunt for long past grievances. Until he says otherwise, Eich is a supporter of Prop 8. That doesn't make him evil, that doesn't make him incapable of holding leadership. But for people for whom Prop 8 is a big deal, I think it's understandable why they would continue to press the issue with Eich and his leadership.
Prop 8 was not about civil unions. If you want to discuss it, at least get your facts right. Benefits equality, etc. that is commonly understood under civil union umbrella existed in California long before prop 8, and prop 8 was not going to change that. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_partnership_in_Califo...
For people for whom prop 8 is a big deal it would be a good thing to at least know what it was about.
Well, it depends on what you mean by "commonly understood under civil union umbrella". A lot of people mistakenly believe that civil unions are just a separate-but-equal version of marriage. That version of civil unions is a fairy tale.
Speaking as one member of a couple that finally gave up on making a civil union work and went ahead with an actual marriage a few years back, I can say that there's a night-and-day difference between the two. The institutional benefits that were available to us as a legally recognized civil union could be counted on one hand, and most of them were still not quite the same as what married people get. People who only have a civil union aren't allowed to share health savings accounts the way married people can, for example. The number of finacial and convenience perks we acquired the day after our marriage license got filed with the county clerk, on the other hand, are practically innumerable.
We feel like shits for exercising the privilege we enjoy as a heterosexual couple. But we're getting pragmatic in our old age, so here we are.
Whatever you understand under "civil union", prop 8 was not about it. It was specifically about "marriage". All the rest was already covered by California law. You can say it looks like "separate but equal" and benefits and other equality measures in domestic partnerships are not enough and only full recognition of same-sex unions as "marriage" is true equality. That's fine. But that doesn't make those who supported prop 8 opposition to civil unions or domestic partnerships as they are called in CA - in fact, domestic partnerships by that time in California were done deal and had the same status with regard to all law and benefits as marriage. But they could not be called marriage and were separate and different status. That was what prop 8 was about, not opposition to civil unions. Those are just different things.
> in fact, domestic partnerships by that time in California were done deal and had the same status with regard to all law and benefits as marriage.
They couldn't have. The federal government does not recognize civil unions, and many of the benefits of marriage come in through federal law. Even with that corner of DOMA being repealed, a state can still effectively cut people off from the vast majority of marriage benefits simply by offering only "civil unions" and not true marriage.
Your misunderstanding of this point is exactly what I was getting at with the post above - one characteristic that is inextricably linked to things like the Prop 8 debate is that a huge percentage of people taking part in it simply don't understand the basic facts of the situation.
I wasn't talking about federal benefits, I was talking about California specifically and the state law in California.
What I am not getting here is how California could control federal benefits? Could you specify which vast majority of benefits prop 8 would cut off? It certainly does not include insurance, taxes, pension, unemployment & disability benefits, survivor benefits, etc. as I see that those are covered by California domestic partnership law. As for federal ones, doesn't federal government controls those? Obama issuing regulation to equate benefits of domestic partnerships to those of marriages certainly suggests it is under federal control - otherwise why would the President do it?
Effectively, people are saying that we should defend Eich for the same reason we should defend weev: less that they are people and more that they are pawns.
if we're going to talk about his ability to phrase statements.
EDIT: downvoted into fairly negative territory for linking to Eich's statement and pointing out that prop 8 discussion is hazardous? Really? That reinforces the point, not contradicts it.
Sure...but I'm not being considered for a position as CEO. Which means, among other things, that I'm not the person who makes the executive decisions that governs the company's policies and initiatives. Part of the privilege of being a peon is that I don't have to explain what I think because no one cares. Part of the problem of being CEO is that people do care...heavy is the head that wears the crown, and such.
I've read his statement, and his interviews. What in his statement contradicts my assertions? I think Eich was a sincere supporter of Prop 8, now and today, and he has said nothing to step back from that. Which means that people who are bothered by Prop 8 should not seem out of place to ask him for an answer.
While we're looking at his other statements, check this one out:
> Eich refused to be drawn on whether he would donate to a Proposition 8 style campaign again in the future. “I don't want to do hypotheticals,” he said. “I haven't thought about that issue and I really don't want to speculate because it's not relevant.”
I'm not a CEO, and I'm not someone who has to deal with Eich being my CEO. But I can understand why people who are in the latter situation may not simply settle for: "Well, if Eich says it's not relevant to how he'll act as CEO, then it must not be relevant".
> Part of the problem of being CEO is that people do care...heavy is the head that wears the crown, and such.
Which is to say, you agree that someone might have a reason to avoid getting into discussing prop 8 itself, you agree that the magnification factor exists for a CEO (and therefore that Eich has a greater reason to avoid making the discussion about prop 8 than you do) -- you just think he also has a correspondingly greater need to address, because this is about governance. Right?
> Which means, among other things, that I'm not the person who makes the executive decisions that governs the company's policies and initiatives.
If the issue was Mozilla governance, it might be reasonable enough to wonder and perhaps even speculate about what Eich's support of prop8 meant for that in a vacuum of other information (though corresponding a donation to motivations is hardly a transparent act).
But there really wasn't a vacuum. Anyone who cared to see what an Eich-influenced Mozilla would be like doesn't have to speculate based on his prop 8 donation, they just need to look at the organization's history, given that he's been a significant influence since day 1. Looking at the internal support -- even from people who are clearly on the other side of prop8 from Eich -- also says something. And the statement I linked to gave the world very clear guidance about his intentions on that front and easy standards based on which to judge him.
In other words, the governance issues were pretty clearly addressed.
If this wasn't about governance of Mozilla, why does Eich have any more obligation than you do to provide a statment?
> I've read his statement, and his interviews. What in his statement contradicts my assertions?
That he doesn't know how to make a clear statement treating the relevant issues, or that his defenders treat him as if he's like that.
I think your point is (paraphrasing), we canned a very productive engineer and manager over his un-PC views expressed in his personal life, but which no one at his organization was affected by; and in return, since none of the people criticizing him or pushing for his departure has the ability to truly replace his talent, we have the prospect of the unproductive people criticizing the people who actually get things done.
i think the real bitter irony here is that brendan eich not only helped build, but also protected the platform that helped oust him. when i say the platform, I don't mean the web, I mean the open web, where you can freely express yourself as aggressively as you want(which is a good thing).
not to step on anyones toes, but we effectively ousted a very productive engineer from a company he helped found to replace him with a marketing guy(no offense really, i know he's been with mozilla forever, and loyalty deserves to be rewarded).
i really hope i won't have this moment in 10 years thinking back, man where did mozilla ideals move so much away from mine, and i know everyone is going to jump on this part of cynic good ol me, especially all the mozillians here, but i still very well remember the time i spent in irc ~20 years ago, where the people thinking about mass surveillance were a select few stamped as insane anti social paranoid geeks.
> but which no one at his organization was affected by;
Uh what? There are most certainly LGBTQ folks who work for Mozilla in some capacity or another and they most certainly are affected by nationally focused political efforts to deny them access to a basic institution.
He didn't treat anyone differently as a result of their orientation, is what I meant to say; and there were many statements to that effect from inside Mozilla (of course, since I don't work there and don't have the inside scoop, this is based on what was reported). Sorry, I wasn't clear about that.
Un-PC is a nice way to gloss over actively denying a group of people their human rights on a half-assed reading of a religious text.
And who the heck are you to make such a blanket statement about who's productive and who isn't? It's a false dichotomy. Moreover your statement evokes an incredible amount of arrogance and hubris.
Are you going to defend people that oppose Women's Suffrage too? What about slavery supporters?
These were just political opinions once too. But today you'll find that they get you fired as CEO. And for good reason: blacks and women (and gays) are your customers and employees and business partners.
He persuasively advocates that the line shouldn't be drawn based on the acceptability or reasonability of the opinion, but on whether the behavior is mere communication (i.e. leaflets, speeches, opinions, blogs, TV ads) or actual action. In particular, when the causal influence of the alleged wrong doing propagates through the minds of voting citizens, this is not something that ought to be retaliated against (by the government or by individuals).
Incidentally, Mills strongly argues that speech should be protected even under the assumption that it is wrong and that its suppression would not have slippery slope effects. If you can't see why what would make sense, I encourage you to read him.
For more on arguments like Mills, as well as some modern push-back grounded in the principle of offense, see the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Eich's right to say what he wants remains intact. Nobody has attacked it, and it has not been eroded in any way. What he does not have is 'a right to not have people respond to his speech with speech of their own'. In fact, any speech in response to Eich's speech is just as protected as his speech.
If this were not the case, then conversation/debate would not be possible.
In other countries with hate speech legislation, Eich's right to speak out against civil liberties might be restricted. However this is not the case in America, he is free to say whatever he pleases (although his actions are restricted, and if he commits an illegal action his (otherwise legal) speech may be used to make the case that his action was a hate crime).
jessriedel clearly says that free speech should extend beyond the law to include social norms:
"In particular, when the causal influence of the alleged wrong doing propagates through the minds of voting citizens, this is not something that ought to be retaliated against (by the government or by individuals)."
...this is really the crux of the debate. Many of those upset about the Eich situation still think it should be legal to fire Eich for his speech but it should not be socially acceptable.
In other words, many people believe what happened to Eich was unethical, however legal.
In other words, many people believe what happened to Eich was unethical, however legal.
Presumably from your description those people believe he was fired. He was not. He clearly stated that he had resigned; his choice, his action.
I am unsure whether people so often assume he was fired because that's what fits the narrative they want to push (bullying intolerant liberal witch-hunting mob action... choose from any of the above, they've all been used), or because it's next to impossible to argue that he was wronged if he resigned.
(the difficulty being that making someone feel unwelcome through overwhelming social pressure can't be labeled wrong in the "Eich was wronged" worldview, because then the overwhelming unwelcoming social pressure of Proposition 8 comes into play as a "well, he did wrong")
> (the difficulty being that making someone feel unwelcome through overwhelming social pressure can't be labeled wrong in the "Eich was wronged" worldview, because then the overwhelming unwelcoming social pressure of Proposition 8 comes into play as a "well, he did wrong")
And why can't they both be wrong? Just because you did something unethical, doesn't mean I get to do something unethical to you.
And the idea that it is 'next to impossible to argue' that someone was wronged if they resigned is ridiculous. A trivial example is if an employee resigns due to sexual harassment in the workplace. They chose to resign right? Therefore couldn't have been wronged?
The general argument I've seen has been that Proposition 8 was "just an opinion" or "just freedom of speech", while the people speaking out against Brendan were "a lynch mob", on a "witch hunt", an example of "lefty liberal intolerance", etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
So the people making the argument typically need to have a position where Brendan supporting Prop 8 was not bad, but Brendan being called out/pressured to step down over it was bad, because for some reason they need him to be a victim of "bullies" in order for their worldview to work.
> The general argument I've seen has been that Proposition 8 was "just an opinion" or "just freedom of speech"
> need to have a position where Brendan supporting Prop 8 was not bad
The second statement _absolutely_ does not follow from the first. You can consider Prop 8 immoral and wrong, and still want it protected by freedom of speech.
And calling the internet's behavior "a lynch mob" or a "witch hunt" is not interfering with anyone's freedom of speech, so you don't have to worry about that.
The second statement _absolutely_ does not follow from the first.
You very obviously have not been following any of the backlash to the backlash. Read any of the "witch hunt" articles to see plenty of people whose position is that Brendan did nothing wrong, but the people who condemned him did.
What humanrebar said. The importance of free speech goes beyond just restrictions on the government. If that's not intuitive to you, I highly recommend Mills.
I'm genuinely curious where you would draw your line. Would you support firing Mozilla's CEO if it's revealed he voted for Mitt Romney? What if he gave his campaign $1000?
Speaking for myself, I find the idea that a line should be drawn to be downright antithetical.
What I support is individual liberties. Which means that it doesn't necessarily matter whether or not I support something. Individuals and organizations are generally free to do what they want, including being free to do things I don't like, and vice versa.
Meaning:
1. Brendan Eich was perfectly free to make political contributions.
2. He was perfectly free to say whatever he wants about the issue in public.
3. People who don't mind are perfectly free to not care.
4. People who do mind are perfectly free to complain loudly.
5. People who do mind are free to walk away from the company.
6. Companies are free to respond to the above according to their interests.
Yes, the upshot of all of this is that the court of public opinion can feel like a meat grinder sometimes. But as far as I'm aware there's not necessarily anything you can do about that without resorting to curtailment of some of our most sacred human rights.
That's very clear, and I appreciate your distillation of the issue as you see it.
But it still bothers me: How do you distinguish this approach from the blacklisting of alleged Communists in 1950's Hollywood? Or was that an unfortunate but unavoidable consequence of the neutral or beneficial practice of people's political views being subject to the court of public (and institutional) opinion?
I would like to say: I respect your right to not hire someone you believe to be a Communist, but I don't believe you're acting in the best interests of society as a whole when you choose to allow someone's personal political activities to inform your hiring decisions.
McCarthyism at its core was the US Federal Government suppressing speech. Not just Congressman McCarthy, but scary agencies like the FBI.
The first amendment protects your freedom of speech from limitation by the government. It does not protect you from customer revolt because of your CEO's opinions.
In particular, it's probably no coincidence that Hollywood adopted its blacklisting policy immediately after the HUAC started going after major Hollywood figures. Congress had sent a clear message that the First Amendment did not apply to anyone who was perceived to be friends with a communist, and Hollywood responded with what was probably originally an act of self-preservation.
That kind of authoritarian curtailment of freedom of expression and freedom of association is precisely why I railed against the idea of drawing any lines up above. When we start talking about drawing lines we're implicitly talking about criminalizing a certain kind of behavior. It's the first well-intentioned paving stone in a road that leads directly to tyrannies such as McCarthyism.
7. People who don't like people who walk away from the company can complain about that.
8. People who don't like the people from 7 can complain about that.
9. People who want to derail interesting conversation about how people ought behave with uninteresting observations about freedoms of speech are ... free to do so.
Well it's kind of obvious how it'd different from lynching, I hope.
I'm not so sure how it's different from McCarthyism though.
"The Company is infested with homophobes. I have here in my hands a list of names that were made known to the Board as being contributors to and members of anti-gay organizations and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the Company..."
McCarthy's "speech" wasn't illegal either. It's not a crime to inquire of people whether they were or were not a Communist.
And before you comment that this is different, but of a gay person's moral rights, keep in mind that Communists actually were on a designed program of the violent overthrow of capitalist societies in order to bring about international Communism.
To protect gay marriage, a first step is to defend the very legal framework that would make gay marriage possible in the first place, which is what McCarthy actions were (when taken at face value).
I think you draw the wrong lesson from McCarthyism.
If McCarthy had only gone after people that were actually trying to violently overthrow the US government and/or working for Stalin, history would look at him a lot differently. There were Soviet spies and they did a fair bit of damage. However, the people on his list were not in fact spies or communists and there was no good reason for him to believe they were.
Some of them certainly were Communists. I don't have a great nonpartisan link ready at hand, but here is wikipedia: "Many of those who were imprisoned, lost their jobs or were questioned by committees did in fact have a past or present connection of some kind with the Communist Party." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism#Victims_of_McCarthy...
> However, the people on his list were not in fact spies or communists and there was no good reason for him to believe they were.
The "list" he was holding wasn't a list at all. It was completely fake, made up for his own political grandstanding purposes.
Oh, sure, they eventually did come up with a real list after the witch-hunt got started but make no mistake that our problem with McCarthy was the witch-hunt itself, and the hysteria it generated. Oh sure, we all agree on "better dead than Red" but that wasn't what the HUAC ended up turning into.
No I wouldn't say that. Other problems included: too broad a definition of communist, guilt by association, the demand for loyalty oaths, and an unwillingness to take into account ideological changes over time.
However, I strongly disagree with the notion that there was no problem at all with people working for the State Department, the Army, or even in major media outlets, who actively supported, and were working towards, the violent overthrow of the US government in favor of a dictatorship of the proletariat.
If we look at the Eich situation, there were few concerns about accuracy, no guilt by association, and Eich had ample opportunity to disclaim his prior views/actions but declined to do so. So we are left with only the core question of whether or not there is something wrong with keeping avowed communists or bigots out of public positions.
Historically, one of the conservative/anti-communist gripes with McCarthy was that he left the public believing that any and all accusations of espionage within the government were baseless political smears, making it far more difficult to expose and prosecute the actual espionage going on at the time.
You need to draw lots of lines for lots of different personal beliefs. Prop 8 is an easy one to know which side is on the right side of universal human rights. You are free to feel that gays shouldn't marry, just like you are free to say that women shouldn't be CEOs, but you disqualify yourself from being the head of a group like Mozilla when you do that.
Maybe we can all agree that it's a fuzzy, gray line, and move on to talking about things that can actually move our businesses forward, or are cool hacks, interesting phenomenon or otherwise generate more light than heat.
A fuzzy, gray line that cost a smart hacker a job he was otherwise incredibly well-suited for?
If it's really that indistinct, it's scary: I might want to work for a company some day that cares about where that line is, and I'd like to stay on the right side of it.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that Brendan was NOT 'incredibly' suited for the job.
Let me explain: I have no doubt that Brendan was an incredible CTO/is an excellent hacker/engineer.
But being CEO is not about that, it's about being a leader. Being a uniter and a communicator. a galvanizer to the corporation/community he was trying to lead.
Forget about his donation a few years ago. In the short time he was CEO, he had the opportunity to weather the storm (so to speak) he and Mozilla Corp found themselves in. But in fact, by avoiding the issue, he dug a even deeper hole.
It was a mistake to appoint him as CEO. I'm sad that he left Mozilla, he could have continued to provide a lot of value to Mozilla and the Open Web in several capacities, But he was not "incredibly well-suited" for the job as Mozilla CEO, IMHO.
This is an excellent point. Even if you feel as though Eich's donations didn't disqualify him from the position, or if you didn't feel that boycotting a product based on its CEO's stated views was bad, he handled this mess absolutely horribly.
I could come up with a lot of better ways to say what he tried (and failed) to communicate, and whether those points are relevant or not, he completely botched communicating them at all.
For example, his comments about LGBT rights in Indonesia appeared to be about how Mozilla, as a global company in a global market, has to tread carefully in non-liberal markets, because coming out as strongly, unshakeably, and vocally in favour of LGBT rights could carve you out of entire markets which would be willing to look the other way but won't tolerate 'shoving it in their faces' so to speak.
Instead, it sounded like 'gay rights isn't really a given, so who knows how things will end up right?', which sounds to me like he's saying 'This fight isn't over yet, we still might win', which is ten times worse than just saying nothing.
"Working for" and "being the leader and representative of" are two different things. Eich's views were known to Mozilla for a while before this blew up.
If you want an honest answer, I think if you want to play the political game, you need to keep your cards close to your chest. You may not like that answer, and you folks can furiously click on the downvote arrow all you like, but I think that's the reality of it: for an extreme example, look at how closely every single aspect of US presidential candidates' lives are picked over, both present and past.
I'll add to that: not everyone should do that - I'm glad that some people have stuck their necks out in the past. We all owe some of them a debt of gratitude. But, by and large, they're probably not the same people aiming at the top job in a large corporation.
You may not like that answer, and you folks can furiously click on the downvote arrow all you like, but I think that's the reality of it: for an extreme example, look at how closely every single aspect of US presidential candidates' lives are picked over, both present and past.
Well, obviously I couldn't downvote your comment, and I hope others won't either, since you're essentially right. I'm just disappointed that the Mozilla CEO position is something that requires playing a "political game" in the manner you're describing. "Politics" in the general sense, of course, exists everywhere there's human interaction, but our civic society is damaged when bright, motivated people are discouraged from participating in it lest their actions be held against them in other spheres of their lives.
I'm most disturbed at the number of people who seem to think that it would be a great idea if we could, for example, keep track of the political donations of everyone we do business with so as not to "reward" those on the other side of whatever issues we care deeply about. After all, it's just an application of our "free speech"! That would, I think, be utterly poisonous to our way of life. If this kind of economic activism stays confined to CEO's of open source companies with dependence on their communities' views, I guess that isn't so terrible.
I agree that it's important to be able to interact in society at large with others whose beliefs may be quite different from your own. At my own self-funded business, http://LiberWriter.com we get our share of political books, some of which I... am not a fan of, putting it mildly. But we accept their money and try and do a good job on all our books. I liked grellas' comment here:
But that said, I guess everyone - or most people at least - has some things where there really is a line. I would not want to do business with someone on record as having donated to and espousing the views of the KKK, for instance. If they're the teller at the supermarket, I'm not likely to find out about it, but once someone steps into the spotlight, that kind of thing has a higher chance of surfacing, and when faced with it, I'm going to act on my own views. (Regarding LiberWriter, no, we've never had any books that extreme, thankfully). So I guess that's another reason why being the CEO is different.
I wish grellas' comment were reposted in every thread like this with the same regularity that links to Betteridge's law get posted in every article with a "?" at the end of the title.
I think the line would be at human rights violations. Having different political views is fine and expected--it's a completely different thing to deny peoples' right to marry simply because they are gay. A societal change in norms is necessary to combat discrimination, and the best way to shape societal norms is to apply social pressure.
Bullshit, of course we can (and do) have it both ways. Look at interracial marriage.
If you are actively trying to ban interracial marriage, we CAN AND WILL run your ass out on a rail so you can't be CEO.
If on the other-hand -- you think two people of different races getting married is fine, yey for you.
This just -- insanely dumb -- fox news style -- belief that every issue has two EQUAL and VALID sides is nonsense. If you are a huge racist, you will be fired. THERE IS NO OTHER SIDE of the freaking racial issue. Just like there is no other side of the gay rights issue.
>Are you going to defend people that oppose Women's Suffrage too? What about slavery supporters? These were just political opinions once too.
Still are. And a lover of democracy and freedom should defend (not to be conflated with "advocate for") all of these people.
They are entitles to their opinions, they are entitled to have their opinions battle other opinions in the court of public opinion, and they are entitled not to lose their jobs or be beaten etc over them.
Now, if they do something against the law inspired by those opinions, they should of course be punished. But merely having them it's totally their right.
Free speech is only free insofar as it comes with no other consequences besides counter-arguments.
For, those that believe otherwise, I'd say that their opinoon means that people who talked against slavery in 1840 and were fired, ostracized from their community or beaten up were also living in a "free speach" environment.
they are entitled not to lose their jobs or be beaten etc over them
These things are not at all the same. And in this case, we're talking about a CEO, the public face of a company, not an otherwise private citizen.
For, those that believe otherwise, I'd say that their opinoon means that people who talked against slavery in 1840 and were fired, ostracized from their community or beaten up were also living in a "free speach" environment.
Should I put words in your mouth, about how we'd still be living with Jim Crow if you had your way? "Let's not offend anyone who's racist, lest they feel like their rights to bigotry are being undermined!" What I just wrote and what you wrote above are not productive.
It's also pretty rich to compare abolitionists -- people campaigning for an expansion of human rights -- to someone who did the exact opposite.
Anyway, you're essentially arguing that free speech means freedom from consequences, and it just doesn't. Free speech is not absolute, as has been demonstrated time and again.
You can't insult your boss to their face and expect to get away with it b/c free speech. Likewise you can't try to deny an entire class of people their rights and expect zero consequences b/c free speech. It's never worked that way.
> And in this case, we're talking about a CEO, the public face of a company, not an otherwise private citizen.
This is true, and similar to what got people like Adria Richards fired in other scenarios where they've lost the ability to be able to professionally represent their company through their speech alone.
> Anyway, you're essentially arguing that free speech means freedom from consequences, and it just doesn't.
Yes, but keep in mind that there's a difference between individual freedom of speech among individuals and what society does to individuals. IMO people should modulate the consequences they are free to impose based on the principle that free speech is valued.
There's a reason Rockwell's famous painting exhibiting freedom of speech is a man standing in a crowded town hall meeting. Whatever that man says, he will have to still live with those people afterwards, and so everyone involved will have to understand their part in what "freedom of speech" really means in America.
Of course the government can't ban people from ostracizing someone based on their speech. The point is that in a free society (as opposed to a free governance), the people at large shouldn't need to be told by the government not to ostracize someone who speaks their mind.
Your boss imposing consequences for your stupid tongue is one thing. But should it be right for your boss to froth up a mob to go after you, as long as they don't break the law?
I agree that the consequences should be modulated. I've said elsewhere that death threats are unacceptable, but this is an unsolved problem in society at large. It's not unique to Eich's situation.
Other than that, the consequences are rather mild for someone with as deep a resume as Eich's. I'm sure we'll hear about it if he's been blackballed from the entire industry, or someone sabotages a new company of his, or what have you. I suppose it could happen but I think it unlikely.
Likewise, aside from behavior that I'm sure we both agree ought never happen, it's hard for me to find fault with people exercising their own right to criticism & browser choice. It's certainly not the moral equivalent of a mob threatening his physical well-being, and a (forced) resignation isn't morally equivalent to being thrust into the wilderness with nothing but the clothes in your back.
You're saying we should ostensibly set the standard higher the bare minimum of legality, and that's fair. I just don't see this situation as being a dangerous precedent in this context. If you not in so many words argue that a bunch of your citizens are subhuman, a backlash is inevitable, particularly when it's based on so flimsy a premise. The case for responsible speech goes both ways.
The "insult your boss" example was just a trivial example of how freedom of speech still entails a responsibility for the consequences-- it is not an absolute and inviolate for a variety of good reasons, though a great many commenters here wish it were.
> I just don't see this situation as being a dangerous precedent in this context.
The OKCupid action by itself is a dangerous precedent though. People calling for Eich's head is one thing, that would have happened even if he were pure as the driven snow. But a company taking action against the users of a different company? Because that company chose the wrong CEO?
If that doesn't flip the WTF-o-meter I can't figure out what would?
>These things are not at all the same. And in this case, we're talking about a CEO, the public face of a company, not an otherwise private citizen.
A job is a job. The "a CEO is a public face" is a shallow excuse. The same excuse (essentially not being suitable to be a public face for the company/employeer) has been used to fire people from teachers to waiters (far from CEO positions).
>Should I put words in your mouth, about how we'd still be living with Jim Crow if you had your way? "Let's not offend anyone who's racist, lest they feel like their rights to bigotry are being undermined!"
I don't understand the argument here. I never wrote anything about voting against laws like the Jim Crow ones. Just that bigots have a right to their opinions too. And in fact, when the Jim Crow laws were discarded, those bigots still held their opinions.
(Well, it's actually even more complicated than that. For example Jim Crow laws had little to do with pure bigotry and a lot to do with monetary exploitation of the blacks. More than bigots, their advocates were ruthless disgusting businessmen.).
>It's also pretty rich to compare abolitionists -- people campaigning for an expansion of human rights -- to someone who did the exact opposite.
How about Eich's human right to his job? Or his human right to vote for whatever he likes? Or is it like someone who is against a human right (as considered by some) is OK to lose other rights of his?
>Anyway, you're essentially arguing that free speech means freedom from consequences, and it just doesn't.
It should, or it has no meaning.
If free speech means solely the ability to say something publicly (and then suffer possible consequences), then that was available in every era and to everybody.
If so, losing your head for talking against the church in 1600 was also a "free speech" environment. Getting fired during McCarthyism was also compatible with "free speech".
>Free speech is not absolute, as has been demonstrated time and again.
I'm not saying what free speech has been historically, so what has been "demonstrated time and again" doesn't say a lot in this argument. History has a bad track record with regards to free speech.
I'm saying what free speech should be, and how its champions like Voltaire envisioned it.
>Likewise you can't try to deny an entire class of people their rights and expect zero consequences b/c free speech.
Well, it seems that generations over generations of Californians could not only try, but actively deny that class of people their rights and have zero consequences. In fact when Eich supported his position, it was also the LAW that denied then. And the majority of the population (IIRC) agreed with that. It was put to vote -- that itself means that not only you could "try to deny", but that your right to do so, voting no on the matter, was sanctioned by the state.
In fact, "public" is essential to the role of a CEO. It's hard for me to understand how you don't see the difference, regardless of how some people have tried to appropriate it.
As it stands now, having a job is not a human right. I think maybe it should be! But it's not. There's not even a right to a living wage in the US. There's certainly no right to be a CEO of Mozilla enshrined anywhere, and I believe CA is an at-will employer. So.
Maybe if he's blackballed from the entire industry, I'll characterize that as oppressive. But this is one job at one company. He's lost one (1) job. It may be unjust but life is hard when you have views the public finds objectionable. I can't imagine a system under which this would not be so.
Anyway, I'm not sure what alternative you envision here. Should people have just sucked it up? Expressed criticism more politely? Your premise precludes you from policing others' speech. I'm just not sure how you square others' freedom when it comes to disagreeing with the company's decision to hire an avowed bigot.
It sounds like you need to be able to predict the future in order to know what political views are currently acceptable for CEOs to support. What if in the future we live in a stateless socialist society, and the idea of wage labor or private ownership of means of production is widely considered immoral or repugnant? Or what if in the future we live in a stateless capitalist society, where the idea of taxation or economic regulation is widely considered morally repugnant? Or worse yet, what if society reverts back to considering slavery acceptable and abolitionism repugnant?
Your analogy ignores the facts. Eich didn't make a mistake 4 yrs ago-- he still holds the same views as evidenced by his interviews! Eich had multiple opportunities to indicate whether his views had changed. He defended his views, and rather poorly on the merits, I might add.
Compare and contrast how the CEO of OkCupid handled a similar situation, having donated $500 to an anti-choice, anti-gay candidate in '04. He apologized publicly and stated unequivocally that he believes marriage is a civil right.
This was not a "gotcha." Eich held the same views all along.
Well let's just fire all Muslims, Christians, Buddhists and Hindus since those religions all traditionally are against homosexuality and also have sexist elements.
Eich wasn't ousted for a belief, he was ousted for directly pushing for the codification of discrimination. There is a far-cry difference between believing something is (a)moral and directly funding an initiative to make your religious-based discrimination part of secular, civil law.
I could argue that anyone who supports any special legal recognition of "marriage" is directly pushing for the codification of discrimination. Many people make the argument that if a man and woman who are romantically involved can get a government marriage license and reap certain benefits, then gays should be able to as well. That obviously makes sense. But why can't two roommates in a plu(a)tonic friendship receive the same benefits?
The prohibition of gay marriage is clearly a double standard. But simply allowing gays to marry doesn't completely resolve the double standard. Either the legal benefits of marriage should be extended to literally all people, or there should be no such legal benefits for any people.
> I could argue that anyone who supports any special legal recognition of "marriage" is directly pushing for the codification of discrimination.
There is a sense in which that is true -- every legal status is, by definition, discrimination in the law.
But then, there is nothing wrong with discrimination, per se, what is wrong is discrimination on bases which do not serve a legitimate public purpose. Which, of course, takes a lot more work to identify than mere discrimination, but then, meaningful distinctions are often harder than meaningless ones. And, so, we end up establishing a series of explicitly suspect bases for discrimination such that we require a higher standard of proof that there is legitimate need being served and no better way to serve it for certain forms of discrimination, because of our experience of them being deployed inappropriately to keep groups powerless rather than to advance some legitimate common interest.
> But why can't two roommates in a plutonic friendship receive the same benefits?
(1) the word you are looking for is probably "platonic", unless this is some kind of friendhip oriented around money, cartoon dogs, deities of the underworld, or dwarf planets.
(2) Generally, law doesn't require a romantic relationship for marriage, it just requires appropriate age (sometimes with exceptions or variations with parental consent), specific gender combinations (except where same-sex marriage is allowed), not already being in a marriage with a different partner, and not being within a certain degree of consanguinity. So, platonic roomates can get married.
> But then, there is nothing wrong with discrimination, per se, what is wrong is discrimination on bases which do not serve a legitimate public purpose.
That's true, but that means it's not sufficient to denounce anti-gay marriage proponents simply because they favor discrimination.
> the word you are looking for is probably "platonic"
Yes, definitely. I actually looked it up to make sure I would spell it correctly, then still proceeded to spell it incorrectly.
> That's true, but that means it's not sufficient to denounce anti-gay marriage proponents simply because they favor discrimination.
In policy debates "discrimination" alone is often used (often on both sides of the debate) as shorthand for "discrimination not justified by a sufficient public purpose". This is fairly widely understood, but its easy to get tripped up over.
Yes, debating the virtues of the specific issue being discussed is what the argument should be. But people often just pull the discrimination card and avoid doing that. You can see that widespread in the HN threads when the Mozilla debates broke out. A lot of people plainly dismissed Eich for supporting discrimination or opposing equal rights, without qualification.
People protested Eich because of his personal actions, not for being a member of any religious or ethnic group. Besides, I personally know Christians and Muslims who not only do not work against gay and feminist rights, but are activists in those areas.
All you're accomplishing here is making yourself look intolerant.
Going to a mosque, church or temple is an action. People usually donate to their religious organisation, and in turn that money may go to advertising traditional relationships or beliefs, and at the very least is money going to an organisation that won't marry gays...
There are many people who are still religious but do not go to a church or temple. There people who do go to church who do not donate. There are churches that are neutral or even supportive on the issues of gay rights. There are also people who don't agree with everything their church does, but feel the good it accomplishes (helping the needy, for example) outweighs the bad.
None of these people, are doing anything close to the same thing as Eich's personal, fully intentional, concentrated contributions directly to the cause of undermining human rights.
It's important to judge people based on their real actions and beliefs instead of generalizing based on stereotypes. That's when we risk getting onto the so-called slippery slope.
If you (not you Mikeb85, the hypothetical and general "You") are trying to remove the legal rights of a segment of the population, and basically trying to make them second class citizens, then don't be surprised if people are gonna want you not to have any power over a group of people (like being the CEO of a multi million business for example).
Doesn't matter if you are Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Atheist or whatever, that is beside the point.
Yes, traditional Buddhist beliefs are quite sexist (many sects believe women must get reincarnated as men before they're able to achieve liberation), and uphold traditional views of marriage.
Edit - have to add though, that Buddhists are generally very tolerant of those of opposing beliefs, and still preach compassion and love above all else.
More misdirection from mikeb85. While it is true that different Buddhism sects had and have various views(including discriminatory) in relation to homosexuality, it is intellectually dishonest to avoid mentioning that Dalai Lama (a most prominent Buddhist spiritual leader) supports gay marriage.
The Dalai Lama is the leader of a single sect (Gelugpa) of a single religion (Vajrayana). There is also Chan, Zen, Pure Land, Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism. The Dalai Lama is hardly representative of all Buddhism...
I think you're confusing culture with religion. (A similar example is female genital mutilation, which is a cultural phenomenon and not a Muslim teaching. IANATheologist.)
“I don’t think having a CEO who represents the company that donated to prevent gay marriage is cool. I will stop using the product of the company. I ask you to do the same.”
That was the most common reaction. I think that’s completely harmless and unproblematic. That’s how responsible adults should act. So I’m not really sure what you are angry about.
Cool story. A more marketing-oriented person being CEO is a better choice for a community-oriented organization, and should have been made by the board in the first place. This [1] puts it succinctly. "The mistake made was not made by Brendan Eich" and "The people who messed up here are the board of the Mozilla Corporation." This is Mozilla's board doing what they should have done all along, except that Brendan Eich can't be CTO anymore.
I feel like there's a bingo card that has all of your half-assed excuses on it.
> I'm totally fine with anybody pursuing whatever kind of political agenda they want, but at the moment you start to derail real progress, the moment you attack one of the best organizations who has literally been busting its ass for the last decade to change the world for no profit...
I'm fine with pursuing your politics until I feel your politics are inconvenient.
> Well, you declared war. I think this whole debacle should be a rallying cry that we're not going to accept this kind of bullying anymore.
Not tolerating bullies that seek to curtail your existence through law does not make you a bully.
> The worst part is, the progressive platform has some really important things to say about the way we live. We're not an equal society yet. We still have more changes we need to make to secure the freedom and happiness of everybody, especially groups that have been historically marginalized.
How exactly are you going to do that by letting the CEO of Mozilla be a supporter of Prop 8? How exactly are you helping anyone by outright enshrining in law a discrimination against gay folks?
> All the more reason to shut down the bullies who have domineered the narrative, produced nothing but useless bickering, and have sought nothing but divisiveness at every turn in the everlasting quest for more pageviews. I'm looking at you, Gawker.
Of course, all those people who are affected by this are just being decisive and mean, leave Brendan Eich alone!
> Don't tolerate this any more. Brendan Eich was just one casualty. It's time to start sticking up for ourselves.
Sticking up for ourselves is what people were doing by voicing their complaints with Eich and his support for Prop 8. Nobody was launching a campaign to strip him of his rights in law.
but at the moment you start to derail real progress, the
moment you attack one of the best organizations who has
literally been busting its ass for the last decade to
change the world for no profit...Well, you declared war.
I'm not familiar with anyone that attacked Mozilla. The heaviest I saw were boycotts. That doesn't sound like "war" to me, that sounds like the right tack to take. Calling it "war" is overly-dramatic.
Don't tolerate this any more. Brendan Eich was just one
casualty. It's time to start sticking up for ourselves.
Let's start looking at reality. Brendon Eich had MANY opportunities to assure both his detractors and Mozilla's LGBTQ employees that he was dedicated to ensuring that Mozilla would remain inclusive regardless of sexual orientation. He pursued none of them.
Look, I can't speak to Eich's effectiveness as CEO, but it seems like handling a PR situation is part-and-parcel of being a CEO. Eich chose to resign.
We're not an equal society yet. We still have more changes
we need to make to secure the freedom and happiness of
everybody, especially groups that have been historically
marginalized.
Steps that include speaking out against and boycotting entities that put bigots in charge. (Bigot may be a strong word here, I don't know Eich personally, but he did donate to get Prop 8 passed, which certainly sounds like bigoted behavior.)
What else would you have the aggrieved parties do?
All the more reason to shut down the bullies that [...] produced nothing but useless bickering
I read this twice, and I still have no idea what you are trying to say, which side of any issue you are on, or what makes you any different from over-reacting haters on either side.
Maybe he's on everybody's side. What freedom is more important than the freedom to be true to one's self? What good is free speech[1] when the private, individual exercise thereof results in the professional equivalent of capital punishment?
[1] Whether campaign contributions are always identical to speech in all contexts is immaterial here: in this case, they're close enough.
Pretending to be on one side while implicitly supporting the other. Fairly common line of thinking amongst self-proclaimed moderates who try to hide, or wont acknowledge their own reactionary politics.
He must be talking about Eich, since he was clearly supporting the group of bullies who were so flagrant and pernicious that they'd even pass a law to prevent grown consenting adults from having meaningful relationships with each other.
An opinion of the masses willing to vote is not necessarily an opinion of the masses. Regardless, even if it was a "majority" of people capable of voting, there's a reason the phrase "tyranny of the majority" exists.
There are a number of unnamed social ills and other problems that could still exist today in some countries or that would have likely lasted longer if we had waited for "popular opinion" to change.
I don't agree with forcing Eich out, but Mozilla should have known better than to pick a candidate that was going to be controversial to begin with. A person in leadership should be and often is held to a higher set of expectations.
> An opinion of the masses willing to vote is not necessarily an opinion of the masses.
So you're setting up an unfalsifiable claim, unless you have a way to gather the opinions of literally every single person that's guaranteed to yield accurate representations of their opinions.
"opinion of the masses" is a subjective interpretation of events; not a fact.
As to "passed by a majority", I would say, that depends on how you define a majority. A majority in the context of voting laws, perhaps. But I sincerely doubt it was actually representative of the entire population of California as a whole.
I also find it a bit ironic that someone would resort to name-calling in a thread attempting to defend the unpopular views of an individual as their right to have.
Under normal circumstances prop8 would __never__ have passed in California, of all places.
People keep screaming about "Tolerance goes both ways", but society needs to move pass discrimination based on race/gender/orientation. Donating money to help pass a law taking away someone else's rights is ridiculous and shouldn't be tolerated. So if I see a new prop9 banning interracial marriages should I consider it merely a point of view? What if prop10 says black people can't vote? How far do we consider "point of view" or "freedom of speech" before we decide enough is enough and we're not going to regress back to the 1920s?
So, if one is unhappy with the result of an election we can merely redefine what "majority" means by implying that certain parties who wanted to vote, didn't?
Note that I did not "redefine" majority, I was merely pointing out that the way the original poster used the word majority might imply different meanings to some people.
Nevermind that in English, the meaning of the same word can change based on context, or in speech, based on tone of voice.
> Prop8 was passed based on propaganda and a lot of out-of- state funding... Under normal circumstances prop8 would never have passed in California of all places.
"The campaigns for and against Proposition 8 raised $39.0 million ($11.3 million or 29.1% from outside California) and $44.1 million ($13.2 million or 30.0% from outside California), respectively"[1]
If money distorted normal circumstances, presumably it did so to a greater degree on the "against" side of Prop 8.
If you take Prop 22 as the earlier norm ("61% in favor to 39% against"[2]), that makes some sense.
I think it's a lot more likely, though, that the advertising probably only affected a minority of participants (if any) and Eich's support put him in company with the then majority of the state.
That doesn't mean it was the right thing. It does, however, have something to say about whether his support puts him beyond the pale for a leadership role.
Proposition 8 has nothing to do with Mozilla except for those who decided it was OK to go witch-hunting against the new CEO (as if Brendan Eich was not already in a very powerful position from the very beginning).
It goes totally both ways. What if tolerance for your viewpoint is lower? You're not longer allowed to have an opinion not shared by the majority?
Not sure how that's a good thing at all.
Imagine you are 100 years ago and your viewpoint is "gay marriage should be allowed"? in fact, back then, some people would probably be killed for thinking that. The vast majority of the collective conscientiousness certainly thought this was wrong.
I find absolutely nothing wrong with the way he was treated.
To say that somehow he was the victim of bullying, when he was the one who was taking action to deny other people their rights, is so morally backwards I have a hard time conceding that you're arguing in good faith.
It's strange that this is getting downvoted. Nobody went and physically abused Eich to remove him as CEO. It's strange that those who are supporting Eich for his right to his own views are against our right to express outrage.
> Nobody went and physically abused Eich to remove him as CEO.
I hope you're not saying that bullying only occurs when physical abuse happens, because if you are, you're pretty much denying that cyber-bullying happens. Whether or not the response to Eich counts as cyberbullying, I'm making no comment on that.
When Brandon Eich exercises his freedom of speech to donate money to a cause that was harmful to many mozillans, that's somehow NOT an attack on non-heteronormative Californians, BUT when OkCupid exercises their freedom of speech to encourage use a different webbrowser, that IS an attack on Brandon Eich?
Maybe you could draw the class a map of what kinds of speech are OK and what kinds of speech are unfair attacks.
I presented a fact with no opinion attached, I have no desire to join the debate. I'm not sure why you've chosen my post to reply to, there are plenty of others who post actual opinions you can discuss.
You asserted that an exercise of free speech on OkCupid's part was "an attack". That's not a fact -- it's a subjective opinion about a fact ("OkCupid asked visitors to its site to use a different browser" being the relevant fact).
I don't know that I particularly agree with your opinion, or at least, I know I don't agree that it was less of an attack than Brandon Eich's actions. So I was attempting to understand your response.
It's rather odd to complain that posting your opinion in public provoked a response. If you're not interested in having a conversation, I'd suggest that the wisest course of action is not to post.
Well I guess we're stuck in semantics, because "doing something which negatively affects someone else" constitutes an attack IMO.
You seem to be of the opinion that exercising free speech cannot be an attack, which I call bullshit on. If free speech were not powerful, we wouldn't protect it so fiercely. The right to free speech comes with the responsibility for what you say, and what OK Cupid and Brenden Eich said when exercising their right had repercussions they have to take responsibility for. "I don't like X" has different repercussions depending on the person who says it; OK Cupid advocating boycotts of Firefox is them exercising free speech to a large userbase, free speech which had consequences for Mozilla which surely objectively were negative.
Either they are ignorant of the consequences or they chose their words to cause the consequences which they knew would be negative. The latter is an attack.
> You seem to be of the opinion that exercising free speech cannot be an attack, which I call bullshit on
Quite the opposite, actually.
It's just that I have trouble caring about the negative repercussions from OkCupid saying "please visit our site using some other product" vs the negative repercussions for thousands of Californians, among them many mozillans, of Brandon Eich saying "here is $1000 to help make sure these people stay second-class citizens. Here's $1000 to make sure Alice's long-term partner can be denied access to her in the hospital. Here's $1000 to actively hurt other human beings".
At the end of the day, OkCupid wasn't out to deny Eich fundamental human rights. It's like complaining about the brightness of a candle held next to the noon-day sun
I haven't advocated Eich's views, I personally find them reprehensible. All I wanted to say in my original comment and from then on is that OKCupid deliberately performed actions with a negative impact (ie, an attack) - which countermanded bkor's original point. I found the statement "Nobody attacked Mozilla" to be incorrect - there clearly was a negative backlash.
That's not attacking Mozilla. This is like joining a strike. If you're on strike you're not attacking the company. Though IMO unions in US are a little bit weird (too much power play).
Striking is damaging though, that's why people strike. Inciting others to 'strike' is to incite others to 'do damage', which sounds like attacking. Let's not forget that Mozilla make most of their money via Google search affiliation - less users equals less income.
No, they strongly disliked Brendan Eich to be a CEO of Mozilla. Their dislike is with the CEO, not the company. But because of the strong dislike, they cannot support the company.
Boycotting a company because of not wanting the CEO is not an attack on the company. It is expressing that you really don't like / disagree / hate / whatever the company.
I strongly dislike Brendan Eich was made a CEO. I don't want to support Mozilla in any way and I would've been very critical about Mozilla. Knowing that he supported prop 8 and then knowingly making him a CEO is not the company / organization I supported (fyi: I've triaged 600+ bugs, used to be a Bugzilla developer, have git.mozilla.org commit access, etc).
People have strong feelings about this on all sides (and I think there are more than two sides).
However hopefully everyone on that whole spectrum will agree -- and never forget -- how OkCupid and Sam Yagan decided to step into it and act like opportunistic hypocrites.
And hopefully everyone on that spectrum will give their support to Mozilla now, because it makes the internet a better place for all of us.
I'm sure that can't feel good. Remember that you have over 500 million users and many more who know you. I suspect if you divide the number of supporters of boycotts, petitions, etc. by 500,000,000, you will get a very tiny number.
Also, Firefox is still number one here in Germany, where this issue was a non-story. Over here and in many other places, person and office are considered independent unless the personal opinions are directly pertinent to the office in question.
After all, if we (average Germans) applied our own present-day human rights views in the same way, we'd be boycotting organizations with CEOs that are homophobes, death penalty proponents, religious extremists, pro-lifers and so forth.
I cannot rightly apprehend the confusion of ideas that would lead one to believe that it was ok for Brandon Eich to exercise his Freedom of Speech to support an attempt to relegate many mozillans and other Californians to second-class citizenship, but that it was not ok for others to exercise their Freedom of Speech to express their feelings about Eich and his suitableness as a public-facing representative of Mozilla.
His act was his right under freedom of speech, in a public democratic process. In fact the majority (or close to it) of the voting public agreed with him, IIRC. If an issue is under vote, it's the voter's right to take whatever side he likes.
The counter-action was an ad-hoc protest to strip him from his position. That is, an interference with something not under vote, and in a field not related to his "offending" action. Essentially a vocal group bullying for his firing.
> His act was his right under freedom of speech, in a public democratic process. In fact the majority (or close to it) of the voting public agreed with him, IIRC. If an issue is under vote, it's the voter's right to take whatever side he likes.
Ok. We do not generally believe that the minority's rights are a matter to be decided by the majority. But that's a separate issue and I agree his act was certainly an exercise of his guaranteed rights.
> The counter-action was an ad-hoc protest to strip him from his position.
Wait. Wasn't the counter action merely a number of individuals each exercising their right under freedom of speech, in the public marketplace?
The right to free speech applies to everyone, not just to Eich. The right to free speech is a right to speech free from government suppression, not a right to speech free from consequences. It is, especially, not a right to speech free from other people using their right to free speech to complain about your views.
> That is, an interference with something not under vote,
What, pray tell, is "interference with something not under vote"? Using your freedom of speech to encourage people to take their money/time/attention/web browser usage elsewhere is fundamental to the concepts of Freedom of Speech and the Free Market, is it not? Is this not exactly what Eich was doing? Using his speech and money to support an idea that had negative consequences for others?
> and in a field not related to his "offending" action.
Eich used his speech and money to support the relegation of LGBTQ-identifying Californians to second-class citizenship. Mozilla has a large number of LGBTQ-identifying employees who live in California. Eich was appointed CEO of Mozilla. This was directly related to his actions.
> Essentially a vocal group bullying for his firing.
Again, I do not rightly apprehend how a group calling for a man to lose his job is more of a bully, more worthy of condemnation, than a man using his money to attempt to ensure his fellow employees and fellow citizens were constitutionally condemned to second-class citizenship.
At no point in this drama has Eich been denied access to any fundamental rights. That's more than you can say for any of his (former) LGBTQ employees.
Do a mental exercise. Imagine a very vocal group of anti-gay activists causing a tech company to get cold feet about promoting an LGBT supporter to CEO. That's the dual scenario. Does your opinion still hold? This is the Pandora box that was opened here.
It's not much of a Pandora's box. They're certainly well-within their rights to try to do so. And civil rights activists would call for counter-boycotts, etc.
That's how society shakes this stuff out. That's, fundamentally, how free speech and freedom of association and voting with your money works.
And more to the point, this is the exact world we already live in. Conservative groups pressured World Vision into reversing their stance of accepting gay marriage just a couple of weeks ago. The Mozilla-Eich brouhaha didn't open any strange new Pandora's box, this kind of thing has been a fundamental part of the American civil landscape for well over a century!
Brendan Eich was working pretty hard to derail real progress too, ironically. It's pretty understandable for people to be upset about the appointment of someone unqualified to CEO of an organization they strongly care about and someone who actively works against equal rights is incredibly unqualified to lead an organization like Mozilla, no matter their technical or business expertise.
The answer is to stop arguing with words and start targeting Gawker's business model. Their advertiser list is in plain view. Go to their about page to see all the megacorps that have done sponsored ads with them. Now take the worst things Gawker has ever written and send it to the people who run the advertising accounts at those companies (you can get their names off LinkedIn or whatever).
For example, send the #GawkingatRapeCulture hashtag to the Coke rep who chose to advertise on Gawker and ask them whther Coke is intentionally supporting rape culture by donating to Gawker. Make sure not do this purely as a solo op; once you have the data on their advertisers, pull together a website that makes it easy for anyone to chip in via one click.
Those who run sites with advertising inventory can also donate ad slots at lower CPMs to the sponsors of Gawker in order to pull revenue away from Gawker.
They profit from clickbait. So we need to hit these people in the wallet.
I think it was good that Eich stepped down as he was a bad choice for CEO as it is a leadership role in which politics matters.
Your militancy on this however is poisonous, there is a need for people building things here, not preparing for one of these abstract wars on concepts that folk seem to so love.
Mozilla is a software collaboration and it needs to ship, the last thing they need is social warriors stirring the pot. If you want to help, fix bugs.
Nobody won anything here, at best we all maybe learned something.
The way I understand it, you're free to say what you please, and free to get called out for it. Having the internet harass your business is a distraction, regardless of how "right" it may be, and it's understandable that concessions mus be made to keep the business running smoothly, lest you endanger the livelihoods of everyone who works there.
> I'm totally fine with anybody pursuing whatever kind of political agenda they want, but at the moment you start to derail real progress, the moment you attack one of the best organizations who has literally been busting its ass for the last decade to change the world for no profit
1) So you're contradicting yourself in one sentence.
I wish to pursue an equal rights agenda, and in so doing protest, loudly, when people who publicly act against equal rights are promoted to prominent positions. Now, I didn't expect Brendan Eich to be fired (he wasn't) or step down (which he did) but maybe to actually explain himself (he didn't). If his feelings are so strongly held, and he values free speech so much, then by all means let him make his case.
2) Mozilla is a non-profit, but plenty of the people working for it make perfectly decent salaries.
> All the more reason to shut down the bullies who have domineered the narrative, produced nothing but useless bickering, and have sought nothing but divisiveness at every turn in the everlasting quest for more pageviews. I'm looking at you, Gawker.
3) Seems to me like it's the pot calling the kettle black.
Oh please. Bullying my ass. People found his views repugnant and reacted accordingly.
Maybe you don't think supporting Prop 8 is repugnant, but lots of us do.
This isn't a question of him supporting second amendment rights, or thinking the ACA is over-reaching. This is him actively supporting the squashing of the civil rights of a minority group because he doesn't approve of their relationship. Not only the donating to Prop 8, but even now in 2014 standing by those views.
It is certainly his right to hold those views, but they are repellant enough that I no longer felt OK using Mozilla products. Other people shared my view. Enough people that Mozilla felt compelled to react.
This is not bullying. This is freedom of speech all around and a free market, and a result of that.
You and Andrew Sullivan pretending Eich is a victim of bullying are being ridiculous. If he had been a member of NAMBLA would anyone say it was bullying? No. Prop 8 support may not be as bad as NAMBLA, but it's pretty awful in my view all the same.
People who are going to comment on this blog post need to realize how disturbing this episode has been for Mozillians.
We are talking about a small group of people, a couple thousands at best, that work with limited resources to keep the web open for everybody.
When this tidal wave hit Mozillians, the base contributors and employees who spend most of their days in code and features, we lost focus of our work, and stepped into a world of politics that most of us dislike, and are uncomfortable to navigate.
I believe Chris Beard is a true Mozillian, as is Brendan Eich. And I am glad that we can refocus on our mission, and move forward. I just wish people can put their differences aside, accept each other's beliefs, and share code!
"Accepting each other's beliefs" seems like a simple solution, but it has a very problematic result. To LGBT Mozillians, this becomes "you must respect beliefs that say that you are a second-class citizen."
No one should feel like they must respect beliefs that devalue their person.
You're correct that there is a tension here. This is why a few years ago (2012, iirc) Mozilla adopted an explicit policy that beliefs like that must stay outside of the project. See http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/parti... section (i).
This does not say that project participants cannot hold such beliefs; that is an untenable requirement for a project involving people from many countries and cultures. But such beliefs need to stay outside things like project mailing lists workplace conversations, and so forth.
If people are trying to strip religious people of their rights, as Eich tried to do (and successfully did, for a time), then it would be unreasonable to ask religious people to respect the idea that religious people should not have rights.
Ridiculing is fine. Freedom of speech ensures religious people the right to practice their religion; it ensures non-religious people the right to ridicule and mock religion. It ensures Eich's right to speak out against the civil rights of an oppressed minority. It ensures our right to ridicule him mercilessly for doing so.
Using the phrase "oppressed minority" to effect pathos is pretty weak. I can probably name dozens of "oppressed minorities" that you would certainly condemn.
Oh look. Another debate about religion and politics on the internet. Because the last one didn't change everyone's minds, but this time will be different. Better join in.
Despite your cynical fatalism, the fact that the public's perception of the issues has been shifting rapidly in recent years suggests that people can change their minds. Just because you have no experience with changing your opinion on something does not mean that nobody else can or does.
Consider how absurd you would sound if you were suggesting that the zeitgeist on racial or gender equality was an unchangeable constant, making discussion of racism and sexism futile.
That sounds like more of a knock on your own open-mindedness than anything. I'm pretty sure I've probably changed my mind completely on something based directly on interaction via the web. But even if I haven't, I'm absolutely positive that Internet discourse moves my internal needle incrementally on a wide variety issues on a regular basis.
So if I believe I have the right to drive really fast and I think the laws need to be changed; but you believe I shouldn't have the right to go fast, does that mean that you believe I'm a second class citizen for believing I shouldn't have a right that I believe I should? Seems a bit like a logical fallacy and a strawman. Regardless of where you or anyone stands, let's at least frame the debate right. No one thinks that LGBT people are second-class citizens. To frame the debate like that is an appeal to emotion (also a logical fallacy) and ultimately fruitless, as it avoids the real debate.
You are confusing "accepting" with "respecting". These are not the same thing. For example: I can accept a view I don't respect. To avoid a straw man, you should state your phrases unequivocally.
As a Mozillan, how did you think your users - people outside Mozilla - would feel when Mitchell stressed Eich would restrict application of his views to people outside Mozilla?
Please, please, stop calling this "politics" or suggesting this is about (in)tolerance by others.
It's completely dismissive of the very real objections people had concerning the appointment of Eich, especially those of us who understand the importance of Mozilla for the open web and weren't just out for good old lynching.
The problem is not people who were able to argue against Brendan Eich. I am sure that there was space for a sane debate on the topic. The problem was the bullies who were screaming along.
(I'm not going to call this a lynching, because in my mind, that's basically a Godwin point).
It's silly to call this bullying. Yes, people shouldn't send death threats-- nobody should receive them regardless, and I think this is a larger problem with the Internet in general. But a collective of people exercising their free speech to disagree with somebody's views and to vote with their feet isn't bullying. It's not bullying just because someone's feelings are hurt when a shit-ton of people find said person's views abhorrent.
There is a stark contrast with how Drew Houston of Dropbox defended Condi Rice vs Mozilla's lack of effort in defending someone that instrumental part of what Mozilla is today.
His pointed response is short and stern. "We’re honored to have Dr. Rice join our board"
Mozilla's was apologetic.
"We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better."
If Drew is the chairman of Mozilla, he would said. "In 16 years that Eich was in leadership position in Mozilla, he welcomed and worked with everyone with different personal beliefs, religious values, and sexual orientation. We are honored to have the creator of Javascript as our CEO". End of story.
You can't really compare Dropbox and Mozilla. They don't have the same structure, they don't have the same goals, they don't attract the same kind of leadership or employees, they don't have the same people pulling the strings, etc etc.
Re-read my comment. I'm not saying it's better at all; just that you can't compare the two (and saying "If Houston had been at Mozilla..." is nonsensical).
The kind of people involved with Mozilla, and the kind of structure Mozilla aspires to be, makes it logical for them to dismiss their CEO in the way they did.
The kind of people involved with Dropbox, and the kind of structure Dropbox aspires to be, makes it logical for them to defend their board of directors choice and not back down.
(FWIW I have deep disgust for some of the actions taken by both Rice and Eich.)
Has Eich done anything else besides donating to Prop 8? It might just be me, but the way I'm parsing the postscript is that both Rice AND Eich have multiple actions that invoke disgust. Or is it that Eich's one action is on an equal level with any one of Rice'smultiple actions?
1. Eich's action had no complexity or other goals. Eich supported something where the SINGULAR purpose was to strip a class of people of a right they had only recently acquired. There was no complexity to it, no shades, it wasn't as part of his duties, it wasn't as part of a team, it wasn't as something he was forced into, it wasn't something he regretted.
2. Mozilla isn't Dropbox
3. CEO isn't Board Member.
Mozillian here: Mozilla is not a company like Dropbox. Mozilla is first and foremost a community. We don't wait for our leaders or our PR team to decide whether we defend someone. We do it from the roots, and that's what many of us did (see the community blogs at http://planet.mozilla.org). Others in the same community decided to attack Brendan's position, which is just as acceptable.
Now, you are right, Mitchell Baker's statement is very apologetic. Remember that she is (or at least was) long-time friend with Brendan Eich and that she probably was hit very hard by the tsunami.
> We don't wait for our leaders or our PR team to decide whether we defend someone. We do it from the roots,
That sounds find in principal, but it wasn't effective enough. As a strong supporter (and very minor contributor), please take this the right way: Mozilla needs much better public communication; it's a continuing problem IMHO. In fact, arguably Mozilla depends on public goodwill more than the for-profit companies.
Some decide to stick with it, others don’t. That’s the only difference I can see. And I don’t think either decision is always the right one. I think it’s important to be consistent in how you apply your principles and to be willing to listen to people telling you your principles suck and to change your principles if their arguments are convincing. That, to me, is the bare minimum to be a decent organisation. Add to that actually having decent principles and you are getting there.
In that context the “bullying” framing makes zero sense to me. People were unhappy with the principles of an organisation, people voiced their opinion and acted on their belief (by stopping to use products of the organisation). So far so completely harmless. The organisations decided to react or not and that’s that.
The bottom line is that you can expect to lose customers if you do certain things. Oh, wow. What an insight. Still has nothing to do with bullying.
The death threats really, really suck. That’s obvious. Absolutely no one should receive those. If he did receive any that’s awful. All of that is quite obvious.
However, you shouldn’t use the reaction of a minority to invalidate the reaction of the majority. (I obviously don’t have number but do you really think any kind of majority sent hate mail?) I think your characterisation of this makes no sense at all. I also think that an organisation and a CEO has to stand above some death threats. It was obviously just a few people. Most of the reaction was completely harmless. And you can’t use those few people to drag the others through the mud.
I think this is some weird game of telephone where those who object translate the harmless reaction into some sort of hate storm that never really existed. Look at what people actually wrote. It’s really, really harmless.
There was the stuff people were writing in public (newspaper articles, hacker news), which was as you say harmless for the most part.
There was the stuff a different group of people were privately (if you count blog comments as private) sending to Brendan and anyone who came out publicly in support of Brendan. It was of quite a different tone.
The comments along those lines to Brendan I was not terribly surprised by, because some people just suck. The death threat responses to things like http://incisive.nu/2014/thinking-about-mozilla/ (and yes, there were a number of those)... I don't know what to tell you. People suck more than I expected, I guess.
Then of course there are the people who would like to pretend like that second group doesn't exist or to excuse their actions. That sort of behavior I just can't condone.
Obviously this second group wasn't a majority of any sort. It doesn't have to be. It just has to be big enough to make the situation completely untenable. And they will keep doing that sort of thing again and again unless someone bothers to tell them that it's not acceptable. Simple thought experiment: how many death threat mails does one have to get before it's worse than "some death threats"? Once you've gotten a few thousand, has that line been crossed? And a few thousand people is obviously a tiny minority of any relevant group in a situation like this one.
It doesn't _define_ the issue, but it's also inseparable from the issue in this case. If you want to understand why what happened happened, you have to understand this aspect of things.
It sucks to face the feeding frenzy. This one may have looked bad from the inside, when you see every response, but from the outside it was a ripple in the news for a day or two. Most people I talk to, including those who follow the news and get animated over 'political correctness', don't even know about it. I explained it to a few at dinner last night. As I posted elsewhere, if you divide the responses you got by 500,000,000, you get a small number.
Thanks for your hard work. Don't let the haters create a bunker mentality.
To me, one of the saddest things about this whole episode was the fact that Brendan Eich was a true technical leader. His contributions literally helped create and define the modern internet. I believe he was well positioned to help move Mozilla beyond simply being a browser company/nonprofit org, and advance the Mozilla mission of bringing openness and innovation to the web.
Rust, ASM.js, and Firefox OS are some of the biggest projects at Mozilla and are critical areas that have to be executed well for Mozilla to gain traction in the mobile device world and beyond. I thought that Brendan Eich's background uniquely qualified him to guide Mozilla over the next few years in maturing these technologies into something that can help disrupt the trend of "walled-garden" web ecosystems. I was and still am really rooting for Mozilla to succeed in these efforts, because the web needs them to. Sadly Brendan Eich is now gone from Mozilla and along with him goes a wealth of knowledge, history, and experience that would undoubtedly have helped advance the cause of a free and open internet.
All that said, I don't know as much about Chris Beard's history as I did Brendan's, and I don't know if he can provide the same level of technical leadership in these areas that Brendan Eich could have. I suppose we will find out. I remain hopeful, but not yet optimistic.
Mozilla's mission is vital and they have been very successful overall. Much of the credit must belong to Mitchell Baker, Brendan Eich, and others who led the organization until now but I'm starting to be concerned about the leadership's future, a future that is important to everyone -- I'd much rather lose almost any software company than lose Mozilla.
* Why do they appear to have difficulty finding a long-term CEO? Appointing the founder/CTO (edit: and after a long search and many short-term leaders) raises the possibility that either they couldn't find a willing external candidate or that there was conflict between the founders and the board. Which leads to ...
* Why do they appear to have difficulty finding board members? Even 5 seemed too few for such an important non-profit; to have 3 resign with only 1 replacement ready seems alarming.
* The PR of Eich's appointment, transition, and the political issue was poorly managed; Mozilla looked badly managed and the brand was damaged. The image of the organization is a responsibility for the CEO and, when hiring a new CEO, for the board. Even if the political issue never arose, losing a 3 of 5 board members when a new CEO is appointed looks bad no matter what public explanations are given. The appearance was that only 2 people supported the new CEO and one was his co-founder (again, appearances can be deceiving but managing them is essential).
These signs look worrying to me, but you'll notice that I wrote a lot about appearances -- I don't know the inside of Mozilla (I've participated at a low level for many years and have a sense of the culture and a few personalities, but that's all) nor do I know how to run a major non-profit or major open source project. Maybe someone here knows more.
> * Why do they appear to have difficulty finding a long-term CEO?
I can't speak for the board here, but lack of stock options and the like probably has something to do with it.
I expect that it's also difficult to find a CEO that is willing to operate in the sort of environment described in http://blog.finette.com/on-mozilla (see the quote from John Lilly in there). This extends to broader culture fit issues: finding a CEO who would be a good culture fit for Mozilla's stance on openness and the like may not be simple.
I recently saw John Lilly's presentation to WordCamp ~2009. Truly amazing and inspiring how you guys operate.
I understand many people seek big financial returns and others might have difficulty with the culture, but for anyone in the non-profit world or with the mission-oriented motivation, it's hard to imagine a better opportunity to change the world. If I had the skills I would leap at it.
I'm still rather disappointed in Mozilla's handling of the issue. I've since gone back to using Chrome, and away from thunderbird as well. Free speech is important to me; more important even than using and supporting open source software, which is pretty important to me. Someone's personal life, and their professional life, should be able to be kept separate, and the fact that they dragged out his political support of Proposition 8 into his professional life is a clear violation of free speech. If the issue were so important, why did they choose him as CEO in the first place? Instead, they created an obvious and blatant attack against his character for his own beliefs which had absolutely nothing to do with his day to day work, particularly given that he was a great leader, technologist, and could have brought Mozilla to the next step technologically.
Would I support a member of the KKK, or any other known "hate" group? It is their right of speech, and they are still free to have it, so long as it is not in a manner of defamation (such as slander, or libel), which looks much more like how Mozilla responded.
Whose free speech was violated? Free speech doesn't mean the freedom from consequences or criticism. It means the exact opposite! He's free to speak as he likes and donate as he likes, and everyone else is free to exercise their own rights to free speech. That's how it freaking works.
There's no right to be a CEO, either. I wouldn't dispute a racist's right to speak as they like, but free speech doesn't mean turning a blind eye to bigotry and prejudice. Views are not somehow exempt from criticism just because they are sincerely held.
Erm no... if you have to be afraid for your job, your career prospects, your house or your family then your have NO free speech, no matter what some paper somewhere says.
Economic pressure was used to great success in (socialistic) countries like mine to curtail free speech (even though there was a "free speech" law). And it looked exactly like this - if you had an unpopular opinion, you'd just be marked as "unfit for leadership position", "unfit for advancement", "we cannot have someone going to church as our CEO", your children would get scholarship denied, etc.
You know... consequences. The definition of free speech is the ability to voice political opinion without fear. Haven't you learned anything from cold war?
Is he afraid for his house and family? Mind you, I believe death threats in any situation are unwarranted and despicable. This is not the least bit unique to Eich's situation. It's a much larger problem we as a society have yet to address.
The analogy to socialism is vastly overstating the problem, and a cheeky way to deny Eich's critics' freedom of criticism. A sincerely held belief is not a shield against criticism, and free speech isn't absolute. It never has been.
The fact is that free speech means people are free to disagree en masse when they find a view abhorrent. A pro-slavery, misogynist, racist, or anti-interracial-marriage individual has a right to their views. They don't have a right to avoid social censure when their views are beyond the pale. And that's exactly what happened here.
His free speech was clearly violated, by the public, slanderous nature in which it was handled. I completely agree if his views don't fit within the organization that he should not have been appointed CEO or possibly removed, but to slander someone for their views is completely unacceptable.
Criticism is one thing, aggressive oppression is another.
Oppression? Oppression implies he was denied a right. Being a CEO of a corporation is not a right, especially considering that a CEO is a very public figure.
Now, if he got blackballed across the industry, I'd be there with you. But that's not a foregone conclusion by any means.
I don't understand what you mean by slander. Go look at the interviews he gave. If his views in 2014 are any different from his views in 2008, he gave no indication whatsoever. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I'm changing browsers because of the culture of a company that supports free software, yet oppressively reacts to the personal and unrelated opinions of a person by slandering his name.
I tweeted in praise of Mozilla's support of the web a few days after he resigned and was asked in a response if Mozilla helped support my preferred bigotry. While I don't disagree with the criticism of Brendan Eich, it has gone a little far when my praise of Mozilla's support of the open web got me labeled a bigot (IMHO I am not). Making a correlation like this is wrong and can only hurt even a good cause.
Unfortunately, the reality is that one of the first questions they probably asked Chris when vetting him for interim CEO is "Are you or have you ever been an opponent of same-sex marriage?"
Let's not. I think the folks who feel someone's political actions and views are a good reason to shun or punish them are wrong. I don't care what you're for or against: If you participate non-violently in a political debate and don't let your views interfere with your work, including how you treat your coworkers, I'm happy to work with you or for you. Or grab a beer with you and try to change your mind.
If by burned at the stake you mean rightly called out questionable contributions that flies in the face of respecting LGBT Mozilla employees and then deciding not to say anything about it or make an apology, then yes he was burned at the stake.
I am hoping he has never made a donation or spoken about any issue. His whole life is going to go under a microscope looking for the "gotcha". Sadly, its just how this stuff works.
I really dislike that Brendan Eich was appointed because the board appointed him while knowing his position on prop 8. Yet no statement while there was a huge backlash at the time that news came out. For me CTO vs CEO matters a lot.
CTO vs reversing gay rights: don't like the person, wouldn't want to work directly or indirectly for that person
appointing someone who you already know reversed gay rights and causes an uproar: wtf
I'm not gay and also not part of any gay rights organization. In tech sites within Netherlands the views expressed are totally different than here on Hackers News. Meaning: most are amazed how he could have been considered a CEO.
Eich was technology/standards focused. Someone from the product/marketing side is ok as long as they get Mozilla is really a technology product company (business and marketing is easier when technology/products are the base focus and you don't lose developers targeting the platform).
I am a little concerned that a switch was flipped at Mozilla when the former Chief Marketing Officer is now CEO over the CTO previously. Granted the new CEO has been around the company a while and oversaw Firefox is helpful, I just hope they keep the technology/standards as their base focus. I feel many of the things I love Mozilla for, asm.js most recently, may not be as focused as before. Also, I lost a ton of respect for Mozilla for throwing a founder under the bus.
> I feel many of the things I love Mozilla for, asm.js most recently, may not be as focused as before.
Chris Beard is the most technical person who's now marketing-focused I know. A little-known fact: he wrote the first prototype of the Firefox themes feature (formerly known as Personas).
Information is thin on him so this is great to hear. I am still hopeful for the webgl/asm.js revolution that they are doing and hope it continues in force.
It's also an interim appointment. My understanding is that he's not expected to be CEO for a long time.
Some tidbits about Chris:
* He's a former Linux kernel hacker.
* In the 90s he started a company that, among other things, ported Linux to the PA RISC.
* He worked for HP and helped start up their Linux division.
* He was Mozilla VP of Products for three years before becoming CMO.
He has deep tech skills and deep product/marketing skills. Indeed, the board had been considering inviting him to join them (on the board) for some time.
The previous CEO (Gary Kovacs) was also a product guy, so no switch was flipped (the switch was to put a strong tech lead like Brendan as CEO).
But Chris has also a technical background (he worked on porting linux to mips architectures) and he knows Mozilla in and out.
To developers, Eich was definitely a force internally and externally and CTO as CEO means something. Switching to that then back is a change. As a founder Eich had immense input on direction. Maybe there is a vacuum now on the technology side in terms of upper management. I guess time will tell how this has truly impacted Mozilla. I am glad to hear Chris Beard has some engineering along with product/marketing.
Also Kovacs was there for a while (2010-recent) but was technology product focused, previous was John Lilly (2008-2010) who very much was technology focused, and then Baker who was a lawyer at the founding and you could argue technology and standards was the Mozilla main focus for a long time since inception. Hopefully it stays that way.
Can anyone proffer an opinion on Chris Beard as the new CEO? Is he a good choice, or should this remain an interim position? I don't know anything about him.
He's been a part of Mozilla for a long time. He was CMO among many other roles. He's a smart guy and good at handling difficult situations. I think it's a solid choice. It does sound like it's definitely planned to be an interim choice, though.
Fun story: my one personal interaction with Chris was a few years ago. I had learnt that the McAfee Site Advisor add-on was causing Firefox to leak the JavaScript contents of every single page you visited! This was bad.
I was incensed, and I wrote a blog post entitled "McAfee is killing us" (https://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2012/02/16/mcafee-is-ki...). Chris was CMO and got rather upset with me for my undiplomatic choice of wording. And understandably so; he didn't want a loud-mouthed engineer triggering some kind of Mozilla vs. McAfee story in the tech press.
Fortunately nothing much came of it, publicity-wise. It's worth noting that I offered to take the post down, and he said not to, which is why you can still read it today.
I like how the board continues to take no responsibility for the situation they created. Right or wrong that Eich was fired, this was a foreseeable event; Eich's prior contribution was well-known.
This whole thing really doesn't make me feel good about Mitchell Baker or Reid Hoffman.
I'm against what happened to Brendan Eich too -- for the reasons it happened. His personals opinions and political ideas, even if he was a card-carrying NRA member slash confederate flag bearering bigot, should be his own.
But (and I'm only half kidding) I'm actually in favor of sacking him for his incompetence, for so many years, to bring bloody ES6 to a final standard and into our browsers.
When HTML5 progressed so fast in so few years, and things like CSS Animations, Canvas, WebGL, etc also moved on, heck, even when IE picked up steam, the glacial pace of Javascript looks really unacepptable, and a throwback to the bad old days of W3C dragging its feet.
It makes solid sense for a company to choose a leader, the person who sets the tone and communicates to the public, partners, and stakeholders for it, who reflects the values of the organization and its stakeholders.
Mozilla stands, among other things, for freedom both online and off.
Eich certainly has technical chops, and has contributed, technically, to both Mozilla and the Web. There's no doubt about that.
His personal values, as reflected through his public political actions, were an extremely poor fit. In his prior role as CTO this wasn't as significant an issue (though it could likely have emerged eventually). As CEO there's simply no question that they were polarizing and distracting to the extreme. Especially in light of how he addressed the controversy once it emerged.
Quite bluntly: he wasn't up for the job.
I'm not saying this as a GLTBQ individual, or someone with an unblemished record myself on this (attitudes have changed tremendously over the several decades I've been aware that alternative sexual orientation is a thing) or other issues. It's a reflection of contemporary moral values -- and I absolutely believe that there's a large room for movement in such values.
If you want to reflect on that for a while, I'd recommend James Burke's The Day the Universe Changed, which addresses beliefs. The first and last programmes in the series address this particularly episodes 1 and 10, which reflect specifically on how beliefs have changed over time.
If nothing else, this is a mark of just how far we've gone from beating up faggots for lols (not that this doesn't still happen) -- even under cover of law (Stonewall and similar events), if not without sanction or consequence for those so engaged.
For those who are suggesting that Eich was singled out where others more deserving haven't been: Mozilla proved itself to be more susceptible and responsive to moral suasion and pressure. There are plenty of companies (and other organizations) exhibiting poor moral character: Dropbox's appointment of someone widely regarded as a war criminal to its board, ongoing boycotts against Chick-fil-A, growing actions against the Koch brothers and the industrial and political network they control, campaigns I recall against Nestle, Carl's Jr., grape growers, and other causes.
The fact is that moral and market pressures can work, and in a world in which enterprises far too often disclaim all but the smallest shreds of moral responsibility, they're often one of the few effective tools available.
So while I do feel a slight bit of sympathy toward Eich (he was caught up in changing times), I applaud the action and result.
I stopped using Firefox because it's gotten really buggy in the last couple of months, not because Brendan Eich stupidly voiced his opinion in a debate he should have seen he was on the losing side of a long time ago.
Well, Firefox is first of all quite inferior to Chrome. Worse JS performance, worse stability, worse interface and worse Cloud sync and features. The only reason to possibly use it was openness and their motto.
With them refusing to stand up for Brendan Eich and his right to his own personal opinions, which it's clear he never brought to work with him, I no longer think they have any moral high ground. I know I'm done with Firefox, and none of this is good PR, and they were losing tons of market share before...
Well, you declared war. I think this whole debacle should be a rallying cry that we're not going to accept this kind of bullying anymore.
The worst part is, the progressive platform has some really important things to say about the way we live. We're not an equal society yet. We still have more changes we need to make to secure the freedom and happiness of everybody, especially groups that have been historically marginalized.
All the more reason to shut down the bullies who have domineered the narrative, produced nothing but useless bickering, and have sought nothing but divisiveness at every turn in the everlasting quest for more pageviews. I'm looking at you, Gawker.
Don't tolerate this any more. Brendan Eich was just one casualty. It's time to start sticking up for ourselves.