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Mozilla Moving Forward

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Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#31

Post by hackuser »

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.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#32

Post by rjzzleep »

patrickg_zill wrote: post #13
natural219 wrote: post #3

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 tha…

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 d…

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.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#33

Post by kaonashi »

natural219 wrote: post #3

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 tha…

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.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#34

Post by wwweston »

danso wrote: post #12
natural219 wrote: post #3

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 tha…

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 go…

> I'm not going to get into a debate about whether Prop 8 was right or wrong.

Take a look at why you wrote that statement, and you start to understand why Eich didn't want to make it about that either.

Also take a look at what he did say:

https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/

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.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#35

Post by asaddhamani »

GuiA wrote: post #24
rebelidealist wrote: post #6

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. https://blog.dropbox.com/2014/04/our-commitment-to-your-righ... 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…

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.

So apparently being a war criminal is a lot better than donating $1000 to Prop 8? The world would be a better place if instead of Eich, Rice resigned.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#37

Post by ffbellfhtlflf »

crystaln wrote: post #22
natural219 wrote: post #3

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 tha…

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.

How can you not understand it? He's saying the progressive left has started to go too far in the mechanisms they use to bring about admittedly needed change. You don't go about winning the hearts and minds of people you disagree with by harassing them and getting them fired from their jobs. This only sets movements back.

"I may not agree with what you say, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it"

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#38

Post by r0muald »

kourt wrote: post #21
k__ wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably people with other opinions than the masses.

Proposition 8 was an opinion of the masses: it received 7,001,084 (52.24%) of the votes.

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).

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#39

Post by 6cxs2hd6 »

bkor wrote: post #7
natural219 wrote: post #3

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 tha…

"the moment you attack one of the best organizations" Nobody attacked Mozilla. You're totally off base.

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.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#40

Post by MrZongle2 »

[deleted] wrote: post #29
MrZongle2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It amazes me that you've been downvoted for posting a fact . Proposition 8 was passed by a majority: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_%28200... However one feels about the result, only a fascist would want to shove that bit of history down the memory hole.

[deleted]

Why it happened doesn't matter in this context. Suppressing the record of what did happen is Soviet-style revisionism.

But to address your point, according to at least one SF-based news organization, Proposition 8 spending had no effect on the vote: http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Prop-8-spending-found...

Edit: apparently decrying revisionism and citing a reference in response to a now-deleted post is downvote worthy. Thanks, free thinkers of HN!

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