Mozilla Moving Forward • Hacker News Board

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#171

Post by sergiosgc » Mon, Apr 14, 2014, 8:34 PM UTC

msbarnett wrote: post #137

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…

To crib a very old phrase: I cannot rightly apprehend the confusion of ideas that would lead one to believe that it was ok for Brandon Eich to exercise his Freedom of Speech to support an attempt to relegate many mozillans and other Californians to second-class citizenship, but that it was not ok for others to exercise their Freedom of Speech to express their feelings about Eich and his suitableness as a public-facin…

Do a mental exercise. Imagine a very vocal group of anti-gay activists causing a tech company to get cold feet about promoting an LGBT supporter to CEO. That's the dual scenario. Does your opinion still hold? This is the Pandora box that was opened here.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#172

Post by msbarnett » Mon, Apr 14, 2014, 8:34 PM UTC

carlio wrote: post #160

msbarnett wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You asserted that an exercise of free speech on OkCupid's part was "an attack". That's not a fact -- it's a subjective opinion about a fact ("OkCupid asked visitors to its site to use a different browser" being the relevant fact). I don't know that I particularly agree with your opinion, or at least, I know I don't agree that it was less of an attack than Brandon Eich's actions. So I was attempting to understand your…

Well I guess we're stuck in semantics, because "doing something which negatively affects someone else" constitutes an attack IMO. You seem to be of the opinion that exercising free speech cannot be an attack, which I call bullshit on. If free speech were not powerful, we wouldn't protect it so fiercely. The right to free speech comes with the responsibility for what you say, and what OK Cupid and Brenden Eich said wh…

> You seem to be of the opinion that exercising free speech cannot be an attack, which I call bullshit on

Quite the opposite, actually.

It's just that I have trouble caring about the negative repercussions from OkCupid saying "please visit our site using some other product" vs the negative repercussions for thousands of Californians, among them many mozillans, of Brandon Eich saying "here is $1000 to help make sure these people stay second-class citizens. Here's $1000 to make sure Alice's long-term partner can be denied access to her in the hospital. Here's $1000 to actively hurt other human beings".

At the end of the day, OkCupid wasn't out to deny Eich fundamental human rights. It's like complaining about the brightness of a candle held next to the noon-day sun

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#173

Post by davidw » Mon, Apr 14, 2014, 8:35 PM UTC

twoodfin wrote: post #142

davidw wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Working for" and "being the leader and representative of" are two different things. Eich's views were known to Mozilla for a while before this blew up. If you want an honest answer, I think if you want to play the political game, you need to keep your cards close to your chest. You may not like that answer, and you folks can furiously click on the downvote arrow all you like, but I think that's the reality of it: fo…

You may not like that answer, and you folks can furiously click on the downvote arrow all you like, but I think that's the reality of it: for an extreme example, look at how closely every single aspect of US presidential candidates' lives are picked over, both present and past. Well, obviously I couldn't downvote your comment, and I hope others won't either, since you're essentially right. I'm just disappointed that…

I agree that it's important to be able to interact in society at large with others whose beliefs may be quite different from your own. At my own self-funded business, http://LiberWriter.com we get our share of political books, some of which I... am not a fan of, putting it mildly. But we accept their money and try and do a good job on all our books. I liked grellas' comment here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7567700

But that said, I guess everyone - or most people at least - has some things where there really is a line. I would not want to do business with someone on record as having donated to and espousing the views of the KKK, for instance. If they're the teller at the supermarket, I'm not likely to find out about it, but once someone steps into the spotlight, that kind of thing has a higher chance of surfacing, and when faced with it, I'm going to act on my own views. (Regarding LiberWriter, no, we've never had any books that extreme, thankfully). So I guess that's another reason why being the CEO is different.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#174

Post by zheshishei » Mon, Apr 14, 2014, 8:35 PM UTC

radmuzom wrote: post #81

kaonashi wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's strange that this is getting downvoted. Nobody went and physically abused Eich to remove him as CEO. It's strange that those who are supporting Eich for his right to his own views are against our right to express outrage.

> Nobody went and physically abused Eich to remove him as CEO.

I hope you're not saying that bullying only occurs when physical abuse happens, because if you are, you're pretty much denying that cyber-bullying happens. Whether or not the response to Eich counts as cyberbullying, I'm making no comment on that.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#175

Post by finder83 » Mon, Apr 14, 2014, 8:35 PM UTC

Yoric wrote: post #155

finder83 wrote: post #123

I'm still rather disappointed in Mozilla's handling of the issue. I've since gone back to using Chrome, and away from thunderbird as well. Free speech is important to me; more important even than using and supporting open source software, which is pretty important to me. Someone's personal life, and their professional life, should be able to be kept separate, and the fact that they dragged out his political support o…

So you are changing browser because of the declarations of ~4 Mozillians? Or am I missing something?

I'm changing browsers because of the culture of a company that supports free software, yet oppressively reacts to the personal and unrelated opinions of a person by slandering his name.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#176

Post by msbarnett » Mon, Apr 14, 2014, 8:36 PM UTC

invalidOrTaken wrote: post #165

msbarnett wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To crib a very old phrase: I cannot rightly apprehend the confusion of ideas that would lead one to believe that it was ok for Brandon Eich to exercise his Freedom of Speech to support an attempt to relegate many mozillans and other Californians to second-class citizenship, but that it was not ok for others to exercise their Freedom of Speech to express their feelings about Eich and his suitableness as a public-facin…

>...to express their feelings about Eich and his suitableness as a public-facing representative of Mozilla. But who made him "unsuitable?" Was Eich trumpeting his donations? This whole thing has a "Answer me when I talk to you, boy! ----> Don't talk back to me, boy!" feel to it.

> But who made him "unsuitable?" Was Eich trumpeting his donations?

Eich fundamentally believes that many mozillans are second-class human beings, worthy of less rights and respect than others.

That makes him enormously unsuitable to lead Mozilla.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#177

Post by finder83 » Mon, Apr 14, 2014, 8:37 PM UTC

wonderzombie wrote: post #154

finder83 wrote: post #123

I'm still rather disappointed in Mozilla's handling of the issue. I've since gone back to using Chrome, and away from thunderbird as well. Free speech is important to me; more important even than using and supporting open source software, which is pretty important to me. Someone's personal life, and their professional life, should be able to be kept separate, and the fact that they dragged out his political support o…

Whose free speech was violated? Free speech doesn't mean the freedom from consequences or criticism. It means the exact opposite! He's free to speak as he likes and donate as he likes, and everyone else is free to exercise their own rights to free speech. That's how it freaking works. There's no right to be a CEO, either. I wouldn't dispute a racist's right to speak as they like, but free speech doesn't mean turning…

His free speech was clearly violated, by the public, slanderous nature in which it was handled. I completely agree if his views don't fit within the organization that he should not have been appointed CEO or possibly removed, but to slander someone for their views is completely unacceptable.

Criticism is one thing, aggressive oppression is another.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#178

Post by hackuser » Mon, Apr 14, 2014, 8:37 PM UTC

Yoric wrote: post #149

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…

Mozillian here: Mozilla is not a company like Dropbox. Mozilla is first and foremost a community. We don't wait for our leaders or our PR team to decide whether we defend someone. We do it from the roots, and that's what many of us did (see the community blogs at http://planet.mozilla.org ). Others in the same community decided to attack Brendan's position, which is just as acceptable. Now, you are right, Mitchell Ba…

> We don't wait for our leaders or our PR team to decide whether we defend someone. We do it from the roots,

That sounds find in principal, but it wasn't effective enough. As a strong supporter (and very minor contributor), please take this the right way: Mozilla needs much better public communication; it's a continuing problem IMHO. In fact, arguably Mozilla depends on public goodwill more than the for-profit companies.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#179

Post by coldtea » Mon, Apr 14, 2014, 8:39 PM UTC

msbarnett wrote: post #137

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…

To crib a very old phrase: I cannot rightly apprehend the confusion of ideas that would lead one to believe that it was ok for Brandon Eich to exercise his Freedom of Speech to support an attempt to relegate many mozillans and other Californians to second-class citizenship, but that it was not ok for others to exercise their Freedom of Speech to express their feelings about Eich and his suitableness as a public-facin…

His act was his right under freedom of speech, in a public democratic process. In fact the majority (or close to it) of the voting public agreed with him, IIRC. If an issue is under vote, it's the voter's right to take whatever side he likes.

The counter-action was an ad-hoc protest to strip him from his position. That is, an interference with something not under vote, and in a field not related to his "offending" action. Essentially a vocal group bullying for his firing.

I don't see much "confusion of ideas".

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#180

Post by wonderzombie » Mon, Apr 14, 2014, 8:40 PM UTC

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…

Un-PC is a nice way to gloss over actively denying a group of people their human rights on a half-assed reading of a religious text.

And who the heck are you to make such a blanket statement about who's productive and who isn't? It's a false dichotomy. Moreover your statement evokes an incredible amount of arrogance and hubris.