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Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#171

Post by dopamean »

_t5yy wrote: post #43
Beliavsky wrote: post #15

From the article: "We have employees with a wide diversity of views. Our culture of openness extends to encouraging staff and community to share their beliefs and opinions in public." Clearly people with socially conservative views are not welcome at Mozilla.

"any opinion is ok, as long as you're not conservative" I used to get this constantly in HS and now in college. This type of thinking is extremely toxic and I think can be very damaging for an institutions reputation. Mozilla is no longer about "openness" it's now about a much more generic liberal world view.

I'm sure they don't literally mean any view is accepted. Should they keep a CEO who liked to throw around racial epithets because "that's his view and we're about openness?" By donating to an anti gay marriage group he was actively working against openness and they decided that they're not quite open enough to support that.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#173

Post by pessimizer »

DangerousPie wrote: post #45

I am a strong supporter of gay marriage, but I have to say that I find this very unfortunate and worrying. Apparently many Mozilla supporters seem to think it is okay to bully a qualified person out of his job only for his political views, even if they had absolutely no effect on his qualification or his actions on the job. I can't help but feel like this campaign has done a lot more harm to him than his $1000 donati…

>even if they had absolutely no effect on his qualification or his actions on the job.

There's no evidence of this either way, and the qualifications for being a CEO are nearly orthogonal to the qualifications for being a developer. He's clearly an outstanding developer; though javascript seems the product of a damaged mind, it's the water we all swim in. As a CEO, he chooses the direction of the company and manages its employees. Being a homophobe could directly apply to some decisions that he would be tasked with making (although he promised it wouldn't and I believed him), but also speaks to his softer (non-code) decision-making skills.

>I can't help but feel like this campaign has done a lot more harm to him than his $1000 donation could have ever done to anyone.

He's been punished by not being allowed to be CEO. Feel free to cry for him, but he's 5 billionth on the list for me. The donation was made years ago, we all know about it, we still respect him and work with him. I just don't want him being my boss, or the boss of anyone I love.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#177

Post by koof »

Touche wrote: post #128

This really saddens me. It is a black-mark on the gay rights movement. Eich made a mistake when he supported prop 8. History will clearly show this, like history has shown those who opposed interracial marriage were wrong. Being on the right-side of history isn't about stomping out those who opposed you when you finally win. It's not about retribution for past slights. Did we learn nothing from Nelson Mandela?

Would you call someone being removed from a position of power "stomping out"? Eich can and will still live a decent life and nobody in their right mind is denying him his right to that, but remember that he did seek to deny those rights to others.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#178

Post by matthewmacleod »

DangerousPie wrote: post #45

I am a strong supporter of gay marriage, but I have to say that I find this very unfortunate and worrying. Apparently many Mozilla supporters seem to think it is okay to bully a qualified person out of his job only for his political views, even if they had absolutely no effect on his qualification or his actions on the job. I can't help but feel like this campaign has done a lot more harm to him than his $1000 donati…

Apparently many Mozilla supporters seem to think it is okay to bully a qualified person out of his job only for his political views, even if they had absolutely no effect on his qualification

I disagree that those views had no effect on his qualification. Mozilla's values specifically talk about diversity and inclusion; Eich has previously acted in a way that's totally incompatible with those views.

On top of that, he did not succeed in defusing the situation before it got to this stage – something which I would expect a person in an important and visible leadership position to be able to deal with.

Remember that Eich had previously actively campaigned against removing civil rights from people employed within the ranks of Mozilla, and indeed members of the wider community. How can it legitimately be called bullying to oppose the appointment of somebody as a community leader when that person has been actively seeking to harm you?

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#179

Post by ra88it »

Mozilla won't even summarize what happened. They don't appear any "truer to themselves" now than they did last week.

Didn't move fast enough to engage with people? What does that even mean? What would they have done if they had been true to themselves? As far as I can tell, there still has only been a single action taken: Eich chose to step down.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#180

Post by nhaehnle »

sanxiyn wrote: post #101
nostrademons wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It speaks a lot to his integrity that he didn't. Would you rather have a CEO who says one thing in public and then goes and does another thing surreptitiously, or one who stands up for his beliefs even when they're unpopular?

I think this showed Eich is insufficiently dedicated to Mozilla's mission. If Eich believed he can help Mozilla's mission by being a CEO (otherwise, why bother?), is lying about an issue more important than how much you could help Mozilla's mission? Utilitarian 101. On the other hand, Eich probably didn't make such utilitarian calculation, and followed "do not lie" deontology instead. Pity.

I "like" how it didn't even occur to you that having a person who is known for integrity and honesty might be a positive.

The collateral damage of advocating a world with more liars (which is what you are doing) is gigantic, because you are now forcing everybody to waste (more) mental energy on trying to discern truth from lie.

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