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Mozilla Moving Forward

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Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#221

Post by baddox »

dragonwriter wrote: post #215
baddox wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But then, there is nothing wrong with discrimination, per se, what is wrong is discrimination on bases which do not serve a legitimate public purpose. That's true, but that means it's not sufficient to denounce anti-gay marriage proponents simply because they favor discrimination. > the word you are looking for is probably "platonic" Yes, definitely. I actually looked it up to make sure I would spell it correctly,…

> That's true, but that means it's not sufficient to denounce anti-gay marriage proponents simply because they favor discrimination. In policy debates "discrimination" alone is often used (often on both sides of the debate) as shorthand for "discrimination not justified by a sufficient public purpose". This is fairly widely understood, but its easy to get tripped up over.

Yes, debating the virtues of the specific issue being discussed is what the argument should be. But people often just pull the discrimination card and avoid doing that. You can see that widespread in the HN threads when the Mozilla debates broke out. A lot of people plainly dismissed Eich for supporting discrimination or opposing equal rights, without qualification.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#222

Post by camus2 »

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.

the bible(and the quran) also say one shouldnt seek interest if one lends money. These books say a lot of stuff.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#223

Post by nnethercote »

ender7 wrote: post #73

Can anyone proffer an opinion on Chris Beard as the new CEO? Is he a good choice, or should this remain an interim position? I don't know anything about him.

He's been a part of Mozilla for a long time. He was CMO among many other roles. He's a smart guy and good at handling difficult situations. I think it's a solid choice. It does sound like it's definitely planned to be an interim choice, though.

Fun story: my one personal interaction with Chris was a few years ago. I had learnt that the McAfee Site Advisor add-on was causing Firefox to leak the JavaScript contents of every single page you visited! This was bad.

I was incensed, and I wrote a blog post entitled "McAfee is killing us" (https://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2012/02/16/mcafee-is-ki...). Chris was CMO and got rather upset with me for my undiplomatic choice of wording. And understandably so; he didn't want a loud-mouthed engineer triggering some kind of Mozilla vs. McAfee story in the tech press.

Fortunately nothing much came of it, publicity-wise. It's worth noting that I offered to take the post down, and he said not to, which is why you can still read it today.

Best of all, we did find a way to prevent that leak -- one which many add-ons triggered variations of -- and it shipped in Firefox 15 (https://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2012/07/19/firefox-15-p...).

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#224

Post by nnethercote »

drawkbox wrote: post #182
pcwalton wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel many of the things I love Mozilla for, asm.js most recently, may not be as focused as before. Chris Beard is the most technical person who's now marketing-focused I know. A little-known fact: he wrote the first prototype of the Firefox themes feature (formerly known as Personas).

Information is thin on him so this is great to hear. I am still hopeful for the webgl/asm.js revolution that they are doing and hope it continues in force.

It's also an interim appointment. My understanding is that he's not expected to be CEO for a long time.

Some tidbits about Chris:

* He's a former Linux kernel hacker.

* In the 90s he started a company that, among other things, ported Linux to the PA RISC.

* He worked for HP and helped start up their Linux division.

* He was Mozilla VP of Products for three years before becoming CMO.

He has deep tech skills and deep product/marketing skills. Indeed, the board had been considering inviting him to join them (on the board) for some time.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#225

Post by nnethercote »

moron4hire wrote: post #128

I stopped using Firefox because it's gotten really buggy in the last couple of months, not because Brendan Eich stupidly voiced his opinion in a debate he should have seen he was on the losing side of a long time ago.

What are the bugs?

One option is to try resetting Firefox: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/reset-firefox-easily-fi...

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#226

Post by overcyn »

ubernostrum wrote: post #210
humanrebar wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

jessriedel clearly says that free speech should extend beyond the law to include social norms: "In particular, when the causal influence of the alleged wrong doing propagates through the minds of voting citizens, this is not something that ought to be retaliated against (by the government or by individuals)." ...this is really the crux of the debate. Many of those upset about the Eich situation still think it should…

In other words, many people believe what happened to Eich was unethical, however legal. Presumably from your description those people believe he was fired. He was not. He clearly stated that he had resigned; his choice, his action. I am unsure whether people so often assume he was fired because that's what fits the narrative they want to push (bullying intolerant liberal witch-hunting mob action... choose from any of…

> (the difficulty being that making someone feel unwelcome through overwhelming social pressure can't be labeled wrong in the "Eich was wronged" worldview, because then the overwhelming unwelcoming social pressure of Proposition 8 comes into play as a "well, he did wrong")

And why can't they both be wrong? Just because you did something unethical, doesn't mean I get to do something unethical to you.

And the idea that it is 'next to impossible to argue' that someone was wronged if they resigned is ridiculous. A trivial example is if an employee resigns due to sexual harassment in the workplace. They chose to resign right? Therefore couldn't have been wronged?

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#227

Post by bunderbunder »

nostromo wrote: post #195
twoodfin wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very clear, and I appreciate your distillation of the issue as you see it. But it still bothers me: How do you distinguish this approach from the blacklisting of alleged Communists in 1950's Hollywood? Or was that an unfortunate but unavoidable consequence of the neutral or beneficial practice of people's political views being subject to the court of public (and institutional) opinion? I would like to say: I r…

McCarthyism at its core was the US Federal Government suppressing speech. Not just Congressman McCarthy, but scary agencies like the FBI. The first amendment protects your freedom of speech from limitation by the government. It does not protect you from customer revolt because of your CEO's opinions.

In particular, it's probably no coincidence that Hollywood adopted its blacklisting policy immediately after the HUAC started going after major Hollywood figures. Congress had sent a clear message that the First Amendment did not apply to anyone who was perceived to be friends with a communist, and Hollywood responded with what was probably originally an act of self-preservation.

That kind of authoritarian curtailment of freedom of expression and freedom of association is precisely why I railed against the idea of drawing any lines up above. When we start talking about drawing lines we're implicitly talking about criminalizing a certain kind of behavior. It's the first well-intentioned paving stone in a road that leads directly to tyrannies such as McCarthyism.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#228

Post by Crito »

sdegutis wrote: post #219
Crito wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

Using the phrase "oppressed minority" to effect pathos is pretty weak. I can probably name dozens of "oppressed minorities" that you would certainly condemn.

Wait, are you asserting that the LGBTQ community isn't an oppressed minority?

If not, then I don't see how you could possibly object to me calling a spade a spade.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#229

Post by bunderbunder »

smsm42 wrote: post #20
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…

Prop 8 was not about civil unions. If you want to discuss it, at least get your facts right. Benefits equality, etc. that is commonly understood under civil union umbrella existed in California long before prop 8, and prop 8 was not going to change that. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_partnership_in_Califo... For people for whom prop 8 is a big deal it would be a good thing to at least know what it…

Well, it depends on what you mean by "commonly understood under civil union umbrella". A lot of people mistakenly believe that civil unions are just a separate-but-equal version of marriage. That version of civil unions is a fairy tale.

Speaking as one member of a couple that finally gave up on making a civil union work and went ahead with an actual marriage a few years back, I can say that there's a night-and-day difference between the two. The institutional benefits that were available to us as a legally recognized civil union could be counted on one hand, and most of them were still not quite the same as what married people get. People who only have a civil union aren't allowed to share health savings accounts the way married people can, for example. The number of finacial and convenience perks we acquired the day after our marriage license got filed with the county clerk, on the other hand, are practically innumerable.

We feel like shits for exercising the privilege we enjoy as a heterosexual couple. But we're getting pragmatic in our old age, so here we are.

Re: Mozilla Moving Forward

#230

Post by Crito »

sdegutis wrote: post #217
quasque wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Oh look. Another debate about religion and politics on the internet. Because the last one didn't change everyone's minds, but this time will be different. Better join in. You're right and we're wrong!! (Am I doing it right?)

Despite your cynical fatalism, the fact that the public's perception of the issues has been shifting rapidly in recent years suggests that people can change their minds. Just because you have no experience with changing your opinion on something does not mean that nobody else can or does.

Consider how absurd you would sound if you were suggesting that the zeitgeist on racial or gender equality was an unchangeable constant, making discussion of racism and sexism futile.

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