Mozilla and I

http://archiville.org/2014/03/27/mozilla-and-i/

by thomseddon • 12 years ago

33 59 12 years ago

mrt0mat02• 12 years ago

Did I read this argument right? Is everyone fired up for a guy that voted against some proposition that was against LGBT? Isn't it his right to vote how he pleases? Has he taken any direct action against someone in the LGBT community? Has he shown in the past that his views change the ways he treats people? So, I remember reading about something called the Red Scare that blackballed people because of their political views. Is that really the way the LGBT community wants to be viewed: Love us or we'll ruin your life? People don't see things the same way, and that's their right. People aren't required to see your same point of view. That is one of the great things about America, we can feel however we want. Once there was a time when his views were in the majority, and I think it's a shame that this is how people think it should be solved. If you want to change him, you should make him hate you and ruin his career. I'm not trolling, I'm just reading headlines, and I saw nowhere where this man did anything except vote his mind. Please correct me if I'm in the wrong.

squidsoup• 12 years ago

Financially backing prop 8 constitutes taking direct action against the LGBT community, yes.

npizzolato• 12 years ago

Isn't it his right to vote how he pleases?

Yes, that was his right, and no one has ever said differently. But freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences in the realm of public opinion. Funding Prop 8 had a direct negative impact on the LGBT community of California. To expect that community to have no reaction to his actions would be naive.

humanrebar12• 12 years ago

The first amendment does not guarantee freedom from consequences, but it's not absurd to expect people to also have a social notion of freedom of speech that encourages tolerance of different viewpoints.

Zikes2• 12 years ago

The reaction is disproportionate to his contribution, though. His donation was quite small, and at no point did he use his status as a public figure to speak out in favor of Prop 8.

What he did was wrong, but it was not enough for us to prop him up as a sacrificial lamb in the name of equality. It would serve no common good, bringing us no closer to repealing the law, but could lead to consequences for Brendan far worse than any well-meaning blogger could conceivably intend.

Let us instead work to change his moral stance, whether by argument or by example. If tomorrow Brendan Eich were to say - and genuinely believe - that marriage is just as much a right for gays as it is for heterosexuals, then that would be a victory far sweeter than punishing him for having once believed wrongly.

coldtea3• 12 years ago

Yes, that was his right, and no one has ever said differently. But freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences in the realm of public opinion.

Those consequences shouldn't include "losing your job" or "being treated differently at work", else there's no freedom of speech.

How would LGBT community liked it they could lose their jobs for being LGBT?

humanrebar12• 12 years ago

Some people opposed Prop 8 due to their notions of tolerance or acceptance. Being tolerant of Prop 8 supporters would be a consistent position for these people.

Some people opposed Prop 8 because they want to advocate for a particular worldview (homosexual marriage is a natural right). It doesn't follow that they would necessarily tolerate people who supported Prop 8.

I suppose people can belong to both camps, but this case surely crystallizes the idea that these motivations aren't the same.

pkinsky• 12 years ago

Would you take the same position if this guy had contributed money to a less socially acceptable cause? Would you defend a CEO with a history of donating to the KKK anti-interracial-marriage fund as the public face of Mozilla?

pbreit3• 12 years ago

I think your missing a few things here. Yes, of course, it's his right to vote however he wants. It's also perfectly fine for his constituents to take his voting record or other public actions/statements into consideration regarding pretty much anything. There's a big difference between "love us" and "avoid making a symbolic public statement against us".

For a lot of organizations, this wouldn't merit this much discussion. But it's easy to make the case that Mozilla is a bit different. It's mission-based. It's employee and constituent bases probably skew LGBT. The tech industry is one of the biggest supporters of LGBT rights. Mozilla is a fairly flat org. We're talking about the CEO role which requires a sphere of influence both internally, and in this case, to a great extent externally.

The guy made a huge mistake if he ever had an eye on moving into the CEO role. His donation was pretty much insignificant so we can only view it as a symbolic gesture. And the symbolism is very antagonistic towards his constituents.

davidgerard• 12 years ago

Has he taken any direct action against someone in the LGBT community?

Yes, a thousand dollars of political speech. This was a direct action on his part to try to take away rights people already had at that time. He admits he took this action.

bowlofpetunias• 12 years ago

You are trolling.

And like most trolls on this subject, you try to twist hateful bigotry into "political views". There's nothing political about considering other people subhuman. It's pure, unadulterated vicious hatred.

And even then there is a fundamental difference believing that something is against your religion and actually trying to prevent people from having equal rights. The former maybe a personal view, but the latter is just outright viciousness.

He has the right to believe whatever he wants, but nobody should be expected to work for this asshole, or want to have anything to do with him.

It's also completely beyond me why any company would want such a hateful extremist as their leader.

mrt0mat02• 12 years ago

no, this is trolling. Steve Jobs was an asshole, nobody would argue that. He treated people like shit, but he did great things... So, I guess it's ok to own an apple device because, hey, he didn't hate MY culture, he just hates all people. Attacking one man because he disagrees with your political/emotional/sexual views is the problem. As a group that claims accept people that are different, your community comes off as hypocrites. So you only accept people if they're your kind of different?

fidotron• 12 years ago

You know, I'll get downvoted to hell and back for this.

If you read the Unabomber manifesto a few things strike you. One is obviously that the guy has a few screws loose as to how to resolve what he perceived as the problems of the world, another is when it comes to attacking the psychology of the protest movement he was bang on.

This is an example of exactly what he rants about - people over thinking and then making highly visible group based sacrifices with no reasonable endgame just to make everyone feel more solidarity but achieving absolutely nothing except making them all feel better.

Want to oust the CEO? Get in a group and walk into his office. Don't go on about it on the Internet.

arcameron2• 12 years ago

Great post, I think you analyzed this very well.

I think it's unfortunate that he's donated money to fight against personal liberties. I don't think it is worth it to deny yourself contributions to Mozilla on this one fact alone.

There are many greater causes to throw yourself behind, and I'm somewhat disappointed I don't see the same vehemance for those

jmspring2• 12 years ago

Worked in a cube next to Brendan many years ago, back before the lizard was free from the yolk of AOL. A blue E and an inflatable Lizard were exchanged as pranks. I was recently out of college. Brendan was an approachable, smart, and talented engineer. I didn't work on Javascript, but learned a few things from him during my tenure nonetheless.

I know Mozilla and it's drive for openness, embracing of diversity, etc. So that may be why it is special. The CEO role is definitely a very visible role.

That said, I wonder. If we knew the beliefs of and the organizations donated to of those any of us happen to be working for at a given time, how would that impact our day to day lives? Say someone who was very much anti-H1B/immigration visas, should they not work for Microsoft or Facebook, both of which have leaders that are very much for changes to the visa system? If you are quite liberal in your beliefs and you then end up working for someone that is a member of the tea party?

I realize the role mozilla plays (and it's charter), I know of Brendan's donation (for which I disagree).

I'm trying to understand is this particular issue specific to this organization and individual or is it something that we might see become broader?

rabbyte• 12 years ago

That's one aspect of this I don't understand. Another is the idea that you can reduce a persons impact to one issue. The irony is that through his involvement in JavaScript and Mozilla, he has likely done more for the LGBT community than I have and I'm part of that community. Should I disregard that incidental impact because of the smaller, intentional impact coming from his personal life?

I admire Mozilla as a profoundly transparent and open culture. The CEO does set the tone so the conversation is completely justified but this isn't so much a conversation as it is picketing and posturing. I wouldn't want my legacy to be reduced to one of the many things I disagree with the world about. I would want people to see the full context of my impact, disagree with me where I went wrong, and respect our differences.

Zikes2• 12 years ago

52% of voters, just a hair over 7 million or 1 in 5 Californians, voted in favor of Proposition 8.

Each of those people contributed to the moral travesty of that constitutional amendment. Are we to deny them all the right to a career in the name of moral freedoms? In this perfect world, would removing 1/5th of California's working force be a net benefit to society?

Perhaps instead of vilifying a few of them, we should focus our efforts on repealing the amendment and securing a more ideal future that everyone can prosper in.

CanSpice• 12 years ago

Those people voted privately. The CEO of Mozilla publicly contributed to the Prop 8 campaign. If any of those seven million people made it publicly known that they funded or voted for Prop 8, then they might have to live with the consequences of making that publicly known.

They won't have their careers denied at all.

humanrebar12• 12 years ago

So it's OK if they can get away with it?

jmspring2• 12 years ago

Donations are public record, even if done as a private citizen. Which is a bit different than someone publicly making their private donation known.

mhurron2• 12 years ago

So no-one can take action against stands and actions they disagree with?

humanrebar12• 12 years ago

Would it be OK if I didn't hire someone because they supported gay marriage?

lern_too_spel2• 12 years ago

Nobody's denying anybody the right to a career. They're questioning the appointment of a man who has contributed to the oppression of others into the top leadership position of an organization. This drives decent people away from associating with that organization, as has happened in this case. It's up to the organization to determine if that appointment is worth it, and it's up to the man who is now in a leadership position to try to make the situation better.

arcameron2• 12 years ago

Every one of us has oppressed another at one point in our lives. Is it just because it is recent?

coldtea3• 12 years ago

I can’t walk away from these people nor the cause I share with them nor the potential for Mozilla to once again be known as the champion to all but neither can I continue to earn my living from Mozilla while it is seen to exclude and alienate anyone.

Translation: I need the attention and the feeling I'm doing something great for a large cause, so I'm forcing it, even though nothing has been done to any Mozilla employee, just because we elected a CEO whose PERSONAL opinions on some certain civil rights differ than mine.

schmichael• 12 years ago

The author works for the Mozilla Foundation on which Eich has always been a board member.

Eich was promoted to CEO of the Corporation which is a for-profit subsidiary of the Foundation.

As far as I can tell Eich's promotion to CEO doesn't give him any more power or status within the Foundation than he already had. It seems like this person should have quit the Foundation when it was revealed one of their board members donated to Prop 8 years ago.

Does anyone know the political actions of the other Foundation board members? The CEO answers to the corporation's board of directors; does anyone know (or care) about their political actions?

tn132• 12 years ago

I do not think that this sort of behavior reflects well on LGBT community as a whole. This is like a devoted Christian employee leaving Microsoft because Satya Nadella is a polytheist pagan and has been donating his money to institutions that support paganism and idolatry. It only goes to show that some people who talk of need for equal treatment for all but themselves are unable to tolerate diversity of thoughts.

Mozilla employees have total right to leave their job for whatever reason they want but if I had to hire them in my company I will think thrice.

This kind of knee jerk reactions would make hiring LGBT people more riskier and hence affect the whole LGBT community. In my opinion it is very irrational for an employee to judge his boss by what he chooses to do with his spare cash and time after office hours. What matters is whether he is a competent leader within organization or not.

lucian1900• 12 years ago

It would be like Satya donating money towards restricting the rights of Christians. Like, say, the right to marry whoever you want.

subsection1h• 12 years ago

Exactly! Some people state that they "do not think that this sort of behavior reflects well on LGBT community as a whole," but if a CEO were to financially support the promotion of legislation that would prevent Christians from marrying, millions of Christians would flip out.

tn132• 12 years ago

I don't get it. What is wrong with someone donating his money legitimately to a cause that restricts someone' freedom ?

- Should I leave my job if my CEO supports Gun Control ? - As a government employee is it rational for me to leave my job because Obama's idiotic welfare programs are reducing choice for millions of people in education and other fields ?

How on earth it helps anyone including the LGBT community itself ? Likely this hurts their employment chances.

toggle• 12 years ago

I hope [Mozilla] will very soon find its way back to the core values that I hold so dear.

The whole tone of this post (and that sentence in particular) makes it sound like this person sees some kind of systemic shift in Mozilla, which seems like a stretch.

Over the last few years Mozilla has been focusing on making the web be a platform for applications. This is so 100% spot-on with their mission statement -- it's like Mozilla has found their true purpose, and that is more than just creating applications than enable people to use the internet (Firefox, Thunderbird). Now they're doing more to make sure the web is a great platform for applications (asm.js, Firefox OS). I'm assuming that, as CTO, Brendan Eich had a lot to do with that. It would seem natural to pick him to be CEO. But now people are making it sound like Mozilla has lost it's way all of the sudden.

Obligatory disclaimer: I completely disagree with Eich's view on gay marriage. At the same time, I think he's very qualified to be CEO of Mozilla. Ousting him is not what will ultimately lead to LGBT acceptance. He does hold a stupid belief, but I don't think that means he should be "shunned" and not allowed to contribute to (or exist in) the web community, where he has proven to be a passionate innovator. I've found that I don't like allowing myself to be polarized towards everyone in some group, even if it's justifiable to dislike them.

Mozilla and I

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