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Mozilla Moving Forward

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Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#111

Post by jsutton »

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?

I think the line would be at human rights violations. Having different political views is fine and expected--it's a completely different thing to deny peoples' right to marry simply because they are gay. A societal change in norms is necessary to combat discrimination, and the best way to shape societal norms is to apply social pressure.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#112

Post by carlio »

bkor wrote: post #100
carlio wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's not attacking Mozilla. This is like joining a strike. If you're on strike you're not attacking the company. Though IMO unions in US are a little bit weird (too much power play).

Striking is damaging though, that's why people strike. Inciting others to 'strike' is to incite others to 'do damage', which sounds like attacking. Let's not forget that Mozilla make most of their money via Google search affiliation - less users equals less income.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#113

Post by vdaniuk »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #86
Tloewald wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buddhism?

Yes, traditional Buddhist beliefs are quite sexist (many sects believe women must get reincarnated as men before they're able to achieve liberation), and uphold traditional views of marriage. Edit - have to add though, that Buddhists are generally very tolerant of those of opposing beliefs, and still preach compassion and love above all else.

More misdirection from mikeb85. While it is true that different Buddhism sects had and have various views(including discriminatory) in relation to homosexuality, it is intellectually dishonest to avoid mentioning that Dalai Lama (a most prominent Buddhist spiritual leader) supports gay marriage.

Proof:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/tibet/1068249...

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#114

Post by SethMurphy »

I tweeted in praise of Mozilla's support of the web a few days after he resigned and was asked in a response if Mozilla helped support my preferred bigotry. While I don't disagree with the criticism of Brendan Eich, it has gone a little far when my praise of Mozilla's support of the open web got me labeled a bigot (IMHO I am not). Making a correlation like this is wrong and can only hurt even a good cause.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#115

Post by Crito »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #74
ender7 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Why not? Religious people get ridiculed all the time, people drink and eat pork around Muslims, and yet somehow they fit in fine. And being a member of a religion isn't always a choice, being that usually you're born into it and your name identifies you as such.

If people are trying to strip religious people of their rights, as Eich tried to do (and successfully did, for a time), then it would be unreasonable to ask religious people to respect the idea that religious people should not have rights.

Ridiculing is fine. Freedom of speech ensures religious people the right to practice their religion; it ensures non-religious people the right to ridicule and mock religion. It ensures Eich's right to speak out against the civil rights of an oppressed minority. It ensures our right to ridicule him mercilessly for doing so.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#116

Post by aaronbrethorst »

baddox wrote: post #95
binarycrusader wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An opinion of the masses willing to vote is not necessarily an opinion of the masses. Regardless, even if it was a "majority" of people capable of voting , there's a reason the phrase "tyranny of the majority" exists. There are a number of unnamed social ills and other problems that could still exist today in some countries or that would have likely lasted longer if we had waited for "popular opinion" to change. I do…

> An opinion of the masses willing to vote is not necessarily an opinion of the masses. So you're setting up an unfalsifiable claim, unless you have a way to gather the opinions of literally every single person that's guaranteed to yield accurate representations of their opinions.

Nah, it's really not. Check out RV/LV polling numbers from 2008. I'm sure they showed a difference.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#117

Post by homulilly »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #82
homulilly wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People protested Eich because of his personal actions, not for being a member of any religious or ethnic group. Besides, I personally know Christians and Muslims who not only do not work against gay and feminist rights, but are activists in those areas. All you're accomplishing here is making yourself look intolerant.

Going to a mosque, church or temple is an action. People usually donate to their religious organisation, and in turn that money may go to advertising traditional relationships or beliefs, and at the very least is money going to an organisation that won't marry gays...

There are many people who are still religious but do not go to a church or temple. There people who do go to church who do not donate. There are churches that are neutral or even supportive on the issues of gay rights. There are also people who don't agree with everything their church does, but feel the good it accomplishes (helping the needy, for example) outweighs the bad.

None of these people, are doing anything close to the same thing as Eich's personal, fully intentional, concentrated contributions directly to the cause of undermining human rights.

It's important to judge people based on their real actions and beliefs instead of generalizing based on stereotypes. That's when we risk getting onto the so-called slippery slope.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#118

Post by dragonwriter »

quasque wrote: post #105
Mikeb85 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Religious people get ridiculed all the time, people drink and eat pork around Muslims, and yet somehow they fit in fine. And being a member of a religion isn't always a choice, being that usually you're born into it and your name identifies you as such.

By implication, are you saying that being homophobic is not a choice?

Disliking things generally isn't a direct choice, though it may be possible to make deliberate choices that will change your tastes over time.

Particular expressions of dislike may be choices, but the underlying feeling is not.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#119

Post by bzbarsky »

ender7 wrote: post #62
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.

You're correct that there is a tension here. This is why a few years ago (2012, iirc) Mozilla adopted an explicit policy that beliefs like that must stay outside of the project. See http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/parti... section (i).

This does not say that project participants cannot hold such beliefs; that is an untenable requirement for a project involving people from many countries and cultures. But such beliefs need to stay outside things like project mailing lists workplace conversations, and so forth.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#120

Post by adl »

twoodfin wrote: post #76
davidw wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A fuzzy, gray line that cost a smart hacker a job he was otherwise incredibly well-suited for? If it's really that indistinct, it's scary: I might want to work for a company some day that cares about where that line is, and I'd like to stay on the right side of it.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that Brendan was NOT 'incredibly' suited for the job.

Let me explain: I have no doubt that Brendan was an incredible CTO/is an excellent hacker/engineer.

But being CEO is not about that, it's about being a leader. Being a uniter and a communicator. a galvanizer to the corporation/community he was trying to lead.

Forget about his donation a few years ago. In the short time he was CEO, he had the opportunity to weather the storm (so to speak) he and Mozilla Corp found themselves in. But in fact, by avoiding the issue, he dug a even deeper hole.

His one interview about the issue to The Guardian was a complete mess PR wise: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/01/mozilla-ce...

It was a mistake to appoint him as CEO. I'm sad that he left Mozilla, he could have continued to provide a lot of value to Mozilla and the Open Web in several capacities, But he was not "incredibly well-suited" for the job as Mozilla CEO, IMHO.

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