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Mozilla Moving Forward

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131–140 of 259 posts

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#131

Post by bzbarsky »

hackuser wrote: post #31

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?…

> * Why do they appear to have difficulty finding a long-term CEO?

I can't speak for the board here, but lack of stock options and the like probably has something to do with it.

I expect that it's also difficult to find a CEO that is willing to operate in the sort of environment described in http://blog.finette.com/on-mozilla (see the quote from John Lilly in there). This extends to broader culture fit issues: finding a CEO who would be a good culture fit for Mozilla's stance on openness and the like may not be simple.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#132

Post by bunderbunder »

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?

Speaking for myself, I find the idea that a line should be drawn to be downright antithetical.

What I support is individual liberties. Which means that it doesn't necessarily matter whether or not I support something. Individuals and organizations are generally free to do what they want, including being free to do things I don't like, and vice versa.

Meaning:

  1. Brendan Eich was perfectly free to make political contributions.

  2. He was perfectly free to say whatever he wants about the issue in public.

  3. People who don't mind are perfectly free to not care.

  4. People who do mind are perfectly free to complain loudly.

  5. People who do mind are free to walk away from the company.

  6. Companies are free to respond to the above according to their interests.
Yes, the upshot of all of this is that the court of public opinion can feel like a meat grinder sometimes. But as far as I'm aware there's not necessarily anything you can do about that without resorting to curtailment of some of our most sacred human rights.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#133

Post by drawkbox »

fabrice_d wrote: post #64
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.

To developers, Eich was definitely a force internally and externally and CTO as CEO means something. Switching to that then back is a change. As a founder Eich had immense input on direction. Maybe there is a vacuum now on the technology side in terms of upper management. I guess time will tell how this has truly impacted Mozilla. I am glad to hear Chris Beard has some engineering along with product/marketing.

Also Kovacs was there for a while (2010-recent) but was technology product focused, previous was John Lilly (2008-2010) who very much was technology focused, and then Baker who was a lawyer at the founding and you could argue technology and standards was the Mozilla main focus for a long time since inception. Hopefully it stays that way.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#134

Post by generalk »

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 don't understand a thing you're saying.

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'm not familiar with anyone that attacked Mozilla. The heaviest I saw were boycotts. That doesn't sound like "war" to me, that sounds like the right tack to take. Calling it "war" is overly-dramatic.

Don't tolerate this any more. Brendan Eich was just one casualty. It's time to start sticking up for ourselves.

Let's start looking at reality. Brendon Eich had MANY opportunities to assure both his detractors and Mozilla's LGBTQ employees that he was dedicated to ensuring that Mozilla would remain inclusive regardless of sexual orientation. He pursued none of them.

Look, I can't speak to Eich's effectiveness as CEO, but it seems like handling a PR situation is part-and-parcel of being a CEO. Eich chose to resign.

We're not an equal society yet. We still have more changes we need to make to secure the freedom and happiness of everybody, especially groups that have been historically marginalized.

Steps that include speaking out against and boycotting entities that put bigots in charge. (Bigot may be a strong word here, I don't know Eich personally, but he did donate to get Prop 8 passed, which certainly sounds like bigoted behavior.)

What else would you have the aggrieved parties do?

All the more reason to shut down the bullies that [...] produced nothing but useless bickering

The irony burns.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#135

Post by hackuser »

Yoric wrote: post #125
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.

I work at Mozilla and, really, it looks very much like an attack. Several calls to boycotts, several petitions asking for the resignation of our CEO, demonstrations, insults, death threats, ... Note that the situation is pretty symmetric: we now get from the conservatives what we got from the liberals two weeks ago.

I'm sure that can't feel good. Remember that you have over 500 million users and many more who know you. I suspect if you divide the number of supporters of boycotts, petitions, etc. by 500,000,000, you will get a very tiny number.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#137

Post by msbarnett »

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-facing representative of Mozilla.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#138

Post by hackuser »

homulilly wrote: post #69
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.

> Brendan Eich was working pretty hard to derail real progress

I don't support what he did, but did he do anything beyond make the donation?

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#139

Post by Mikeb85 »

vdaniuk wrote: post #113
Mikeb85 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

The Dalai Lama is the leader of a single sect (Gelugpa) of a single religion (Vajrayana). There is also Chan, Zen, Pure Land, Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism. The Dalai Lama is hardly representative of all Buddhism...

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#140

Post by adl »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #60
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.

Well let's just fire all Muslims, Christians, Buddhists and Hindus since those religions all traditionally are against homosexuality and also have sexist elements.

If you (not you Mikeb85, the hypothetical and general "You") are trying to remove the legal rights of a segment of the population, and basically trying to make them second class citizens, then don't be surprised if people are gonna want you not to have any power over a group of people (like being the CEO of a multi million business for example).

Doesn't matter if you are Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Atheist or whatever, that is beside the point.

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