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Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

arstechnica.com

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Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#61

Post by joyeuse6701 »

mquander wrote: post #21
eigenvector wrote: post #4

The fact that they can come out and say this demonstrates that these employees, the people best able to assess this, don't believe that Eich will retaliate. That Mozilla is and remains a place where any employee can express their views on political issues, even if they know they're contrary to the CEO's. And that destroys any argument for Eich's role as CEO creating a conflict with Mozilla's ability to welcome LGBTQ…

Let me be clear: I believe Brendan Eich is wrong about gay marriage. But I don't think the price of his convictions should be his career at Mozilla, a company he's played a large role in building, when there is no documented instance of him ever disparaging or otherwise harming LGBTQ employees or community members. I don't know what the price of Eich's convictions should be, but I think that a good way to find out is…

No, it's not always positive. Mob mentality like this could be 'good' when applied to civil rights, the fact that he is not a minority and his views not popular in the zeitgeist makes him a good target. Of course this sort of things is considered bad when the target is a minority. Basically, what matters is whether or not you are part of a group that is perceived to have power. That will determine how the mob treats you.

Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#62

Post by TDL »

angersock wrote: post #9
eigenvector wrote: post #4

The fact that they can come out and say this demonstrates that these employees, the people best able to assess this, don't believe that Eich will retaliate. That Mozilla is and remains a place where any employee can express their views on political issues, even if they know they're contrary to the CEO's. And that destroys any argument for Eich's role as CEO creating a conflict with Mozilla's ability to welcome LGBTQ…

Yeah, wouldn't it be terrible if you were persecuted and had your career ruined because of your perceived feelings on marriage or political commentary/donations? EDIT: Downvote away, but it's pretty obvious that these folks are abusing the freedom they have to attack somebody who deserves our respect and admiration, and are tarnishing the reputation of their cause. This witch-hunt isn't helping anyone--it's saying th…

This isn't a witch hunt. Publicly professing your convictions has ramifications.

"these folks are abusing the freedom they have to attack somebody..." What abuse? These people are exercising their freedom. Their freedom of speech, their freedom of association. There is no abuse here, this is exactly what people have a right to do.

"politics and sex and gender and bullshit..." There is more to life than technical ability.

Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#63

Post by circuiter »

m0a0t0 wrote: post #18
circuiter wrote: post #3

If these are the kind of people working at Mozilla it's no surprise Firefox has been continuously losing market share to both Chrome and IE over the past 3 years.

I don't think one person criticising another is going to cause a massive drop in market share. You really are being a little silly

Did you read my entire comment? Notice how I said "over the past 3 years".

Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#64

Post by kylerush »

eigenvector wrote: post #4

The fact that they can come out and say this demonstrates that these employees, the people best able to assess this, don't believe that Eich will retaliate. That Mozilla is and remains a place where any employee can express their views on political issues, even if they know they're contrary to the CEO's. And that destroys any argument for Eich's role as CEO creating a conflict with Mozilla's ability to welcome LGBTQ…

I actually consider it worse for an individual to have contributed to the marginalization of a group (in this case financially) of American citizens than to just have a documented instance of disparaging comments towards the group. In the former the individual is actively involved in marginalizing the group whereas with the latter the individual is stating an opinion. Your opinion matters, but what you do with your opinion matters even more.

Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#65

Post by peterwwillis »

This is exactly the same as asking a person to resign because they're gay. Personal politics do not belong in the workplace, and shame on anyone who would take away someone's position because of who they are or what they support in their private life.

Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#67

Post by wpietri »

angersock wrote: post #38
davidgerard wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>when there is no documented instance of him ever disparaging or otherwise harming LGBTQ employees or community members. Except the bit where he contributed $1000 to a campaign to vilify them and take away their rights.

Here's the proposition's full text: http://www.ag.ca.gov/cms_pdfs/initiatives/i737_07-0068_Initi... It hardly vilifies anyone--it's pretty stupidly worded as is ("marriage"? What is that? How does it compare with "civil union"?) Look, did you vote for Obama or Bush? Then you too have actively vilified people and acted to take away their rights. We can't punish people for participating in our form of government, even…

Voting for a person who does a variety of good and bad things is very different than taking a specific action whose only person is to strip gay people of their civil rights and harm gay families.

Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#68

Post by j2d3 »

CEO is inherently a political role - a CEO is the face of the company. If the CEOs political views are at odds with most of the employees of the company as well as the company's product's userbase, it's hardly surprising that there would be a movement to get him out. He's the face of the company. If that face is ugly / mean, then he's probably the wrong choice for CEO.

Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#69

Post by freehunter »

angersock wrote: post #46
ivanca wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How far does it go? Would you say the same about a nazi or KKK member?

The Chicago police protected neo-nazis when they marched in Skokie--at a time when there were residents there who still had tattoos from the camps. So, yeah, we should strive to protect freedom of speech and be tolerant, even when people are shitbags.

Yes, I would expect the government to protect his right to free speech and political opinion. However, that doesn't mean anyone has to respect his opinions, much like neo-nazis don't garner much respect in public opinion (but the police will work to protect their safety when expressing their opinion).

Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#70

Post by wonderzombie »

eigenvector wrote: post #4

The fact that they can come out and say this demonstrates that these employees, the people best able to assess this, don't believe that Eich will retaliate. That Mozilla is and remains a place where any employee can express their views on political issues, even if they know they're contrary to the CEO's. And that destroys any argument for Eich's role as CEO creating a conflict with Mozilla's ability to welcome LGBTQ…

He expressed his views publicly. They are subject to public criticism. It's absurd to characterize any form of criticism, especially something relatively mild as this, as a witch-hunt.

Anti-gay bigotry is socially unacceptable. Honestly anyone who thought about it at length ought to have realized we were heading in this direction. And the bar for denying an entire category of people's rights out to be relatively high, personal religious beliefs or not.

He might not have personally expressed bigotry, sure. But putting up $1K to a cause is almost worse, given that it's one of the more efficacious ways to support a cause. That cause happened to be in favor of denying civil rights.

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