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Inclusiveness at Mozilla

brendaneich.com

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Re: Inclusiveness at Mozilla

#111

Post by azinman2 »

MrZongle2 wrote: post #73
pavpanchekha wrote: post #59

Wait, wait, hold on. Folks, this man isn't a politician, he isn't a social crusader, he isn't using his position as a platform. At worst, he's rich. He hasn't taken the throne, or even government office; he's the CEO of a private corporation that makes web browsers of all things. Now, sure, he might be against gay marriage. And you might disagree, and have a variety of principles to back your position. But why do we…

Would we have the same controversy if Brendan voted Tea Party (but only privately)? If he were against abortion? If he didn't believe NASA needed a bigger budget (or that it did, if you lean the other way)? Yes. Yes. Yes. This is America in 2014. If somebody holds a politically incorrect position, they must be destroyed: their employer must be named, shamed, and pressured to fire that person. If that person runs a co…

You are wrong.

There's personal beliefs and then there's giving financial support to crush someone else's. That puts things on a different scale. Abortion in the examples would probably be the closest, but the most 'understandable' part of that is at least it involves termination of life, which is by itself controversial. Prop 8 was about materially preventing families from officially forming. That puts it in a different league of just hatred/bigotry.

A CEO IS the public face of an organization. And that organization, Mozilla, is one whose principal aim is to create an open and transparent substrate for the exchange of ideas and services. That is at odds with his own past actions.

The products and services a company creates is reflective of the people inside of it. His actions have made it difficult for LGBT members to join his organization (and possibly anyone else who is sensitive to such issues). This is ESPECIALLY true for anyone who will routinely be interacting with him. The lack of minorities in tech is already a big problem, and reducing that likelihood at one of the few principal stalwarts of the Internet is a missed opportunity.

Re: Inclusiveness at Mozilla

#112

Post by Torgo »

biehl wrote: post #99
pavpanchekha wrote: post #59

Wait, wait, hold on. Folks, this man isn't a politician, he isn't a social crusader, he isn't using his position as a platform. At worst, he's rich. He hasn't taken the throne, or even government office; he's the CEO of a private corporation that makes web browsers of all things. Now, sure, he might be against gay marriage. And you might disagree, and have a variety of principles to back your position. But why do we…

The CEO of Mozilla is the leader of a project that draws on goodwill of people for evangelism and support. Furthermore the whole philosophy of Free Software is based on the golden rule and doing social good - that is why there are high demands for the behavior and philosophy of Brendan. And I think his statement is appropriate and encouraging.

"the whole philosophy of Free Software is based on the golden rule and doing social good"

"Do no evil" clauses violate Freedom Zero: "The freedom to run the program, for any purpose." So I guess I dispute that Free Software is based on doing social good as a whole. It just defines one social good.

Re: Inclusiveness at Mozilla

#113

Post by azinman2 »

gcp wrote: post #105
dublinben wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a classic non-apology apology. He's not sorry for the original action which offended people, just that his action caused offense. It's the kind of corporate double-speak you hear from someone who is not sorry for their actions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-apology_apology

A straight apology now would have been nothing short of opportunistic and considered cheap. Promising action to the contrary sounds a lot better.

He never addressed the core issue which gave way to this entire blog post.

Re: Inclusiveness at Mozilla

#114

Post by gcp »

DaleHarries1 wrote: post #32

If he stays as CEO then Mozilla will remain a tainted company IMHO. The last thing an open source company wants to do is alienate vast swaths of their contributor base. And what happens when that base leaves? You're basically left with a bunch of conservative, white guys (Lets be brutally honest) who hate gay people and god knows what else. My view has always been that racists are homophobes and homophobes think wome…

You can say a lot of things about Mozilla, but that it's a bunch of conservative white guys? That just shows...ignorance?

For what it's worth some gay employees spoke out about how they feel Mozilla treats gay people, and it was pretty positive.

Re: Inclusiveness at Mozilla

#115

Post by iSnow »

macu wrote: post #74
GuiA wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a CEO, you live, breathe and sleep for the company. While the personal/professional division can be easily made for an employee far down on the org chart who does his job for 8 hours and then goes home, can the same be done for a top level executive, let alone the CEO?

This sort of question, in fact the entire uproar, presumes that Brendan Eich is a hateful bigoted person with an agenda, or at least that he has some kind of dangerous impulse we should worry about. Do you think his stomach turns when he's around gay people? I don't believe it for a moment. If anything he probably just feels afraid that someone's going to attack him and accuse him of bigotry. Homophobia and oppositio…

>Homophobia and opposition to gay marriage are in my opinion completely different issues

In the same way as Racism and support for Apartheid are completely orthogonal.

Come on...

Re: Inclusiveness at Mozilla

#116

Post by Confusion »

pavpanchekha wrote: post #59

Wait, wait, hold on. Folks, this man isn't a politician, he isn't a social crusader, he isn't using his position as a platform. At worst, he's rich. He hasn't taken the throne, or even government office; he's the CEO of a private corporation that makes web browsers of all things. Now, sure, he might be against gay marriage. And you might disagree, and have a variety of principles to back your position. But why do we…

Exactly. And here's an interesting factoid: nobody actually knows why Eich donated in support of proposition 8. There are examples of other people that supported proposition 8 for other than homophobic reasons. [1] is a fairly balanced review, to which I would like to add: some people just have strange calcified convictions concerning specific, often isolated, issues. They may not be rational or common, but that doesn't mean they are harmful.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carlos-a-ball/is-it-possible-t...

Re: Inclusiveness at Mozilla

#117

Post by hapless »

coldtea wrote: post #46
hapless wrote: post #11

He just wanted to take an opportunity to "express [..] sorrow at having caused pain." Eich does not regret his actions, he's just sorry that you felt pain because of the things he did. Classic business-ese non-apology.

Why should he regret his actions? It's his personal opinion and he backed it with his own money, and at his own leisure time. He has a right to believer whatever he likes in his personal life, and push politically for whetever outcome he prefers -- as long as he is not abusing the law. Apologising for how you vote, or what you believe, or what policies you root for is not democracy. And, yes, in a democracy you can a…

Not apologizing is an option, perhaps the option he should have taken. In my book, offering no apology is better than offering a crass non-apology.

If you don't regret your actions, don't torture language to issue a false apology.

Re: Inclusiveness at Mozilla

#118

Post by gcp »

ebbv wrote: post #79

This is all nice but I'm still not supporting Mozilla. Brendan's views are akin to him being against interracial marriage to me. Would we give him a pass if he said "We'll hire African Americans and extend benefits to them, I just personally think of them as sub-human."? Obviously not. Brendan needs to join the 21st century.

Feel free to think Brendan as a shithead, just don't think of the other 900-plus people in Mozilla as shitheads unless Brendan starts doing totally unreasonable things and we go along with it. Thanks.

Re: Inclusiveness at Mozilla

#119

Post by mef »

tiles wrote: post #33

Eich's personal stance on marriage now cannot have an impact on his role, or he will be at heavy odds with this blog post and the public opinion of many Mozilla works to include. He will be under scrutiny as long as he remains CEO. Admitting a sudden change of heart would have zero effect on Mozilla. I'm not sure what result people are expecting otherwise, but if the workplace environment he describes in this post is…

An explanation of why he is anti-gay marriage. That would speak more about his personal values and by extension how he will make decisions as CEO than his commitment to Mozilla's inclusiveness policy does.

As a newly-minted CEO, his character is on trial.

Re: Inclusiveness at Mozilla

#120

Post by sp332 »

tunesmith wrote: post #42
morley wrote: post #2

For those of you who are as confused as I was about why he's being so defensive about LGBT issues, here's context: http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/03/gay-firefox-develope...

Thanks, after reading the context, his statement seems rather contentless. He may very well be committed to accepting the battles he has already lost. But that kind of social progress is an ever-moving target, and the statement doesn't demonstrate any willingness to keep pace.

Progress? Who gets to decide where society is going, and why is he excluded from doing that himself?
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