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Mozilla Moving Forward

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Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#61

Post by kourt »

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.

"which side of any issue you are on"

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.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#62

Post by ender7 »

jvehent wrote: post #10

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 ste…

"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.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#63

Post by wwweston »

[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]

> 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.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008)...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_22_(2000...

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#64

Post by fabrice_d »

drawkbox wrote: post #49

This is a pretty massive change. 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 i…

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.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#65

Post by msbarnett »

carlio wrote: post #27
bkor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

OKCupid did - they told people to ditch Firefox - http://news.yahoo.com/okcupid-urges-boycott-mozilla-cites-ce...

So what's the argument here, exactly?

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.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#66

Post by bkor »

M2Ys4U wrote: post #14
bkor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Plenty of people did attack Mozilla, though, and it was quite disheartening to watch.

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).

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#67

Post by danso »

wwweston wrote: post #34
danso wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

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:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/01/mozilla-ce...

> 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".

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#68

Post by Mikeb85 »

twoodfin wrote: post #50
Xdes wrote: post #16

Time to see Chris Beard's track record for contributions.

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.

Why not? They already burned Eich at the stake, why not apply the same scrutiny to everyone?

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#69

Post by homulilly »

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…

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.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#70

Post by davidw »

twoodfin wrote: post #59
nostromo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And where do you draw the line? 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.

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?

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.
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