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The Excuses for Purging Brendan Eich Are the Old Excuses for Firing Gays

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Re: The Excuses for Purging Brendan Eich Are the Old Excuses for Firing Gays

#51

Post by stcredzero »

devindotcom wrote: post #36
stcredzero wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

will soon go to the next cause to defend Just who is being "defended" here? No free society should take offense to a nonviolent political stand, even unpopular ones. Going after someone like this is not defense. It's attack.

Wait, why is it defense for him to speak in favor, and attack for others to speak against? Don't mass speech and boycotts constitute a "nonviolent political stand"?

why is it defense for him to speak in favor

Wow. Reading comprehension, please.

Re: The Excuses for Purging Brendan Eich Are the Old Excuses for Firing Gays

#52

Post by stcredzero »

dllthomas wrote: post #41
doe88 wrote: post #22

From the start I was unconfortable with the idea of firing or demoting someone who had worked 15+ years in an organization without any related issues raised before. And now I'm appalled by all these justifications while nobody seems to really discuss the huge technical loss. Maybe it's my engineering side speaking but I'm outraged to see such a great engineer forced to leave by people who in the end for the most part…

Doesn't placing "such a great engineer" in a CEO role already mean he's not being applied to engineering tasks?

Managing engineers with a good understanding of what they do is a very valuable skill.

Re: The Excuses for Purging Brendan Eich Are the Old Excuses for Firing Gays

#53

Post by stcredzero »

eropple wrote: post #44
stcredzero wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that, "Two wrongs make a right?" In any case, it is still an intolerance. It's very dangerous ground to label political donation as "intolerance." It's inimical to civic and democratic political processes in a free society. In fact, I would label it as intolerant. If a person is taking actions that are nonviolent and legal, and they do not advocate the active destruction of our system of self governance, they s…

This "coexistence" mischaracterization is silly. His right to coexist is not in question. But we are under no obligation to patronize an organization that puts people whose worldviews are at odds with ours in ways that damage people we care about. I feel no ethical compulsion to associate with or enrich (because his salary's paid for by my eyeballs if I use Firefox) people who want to hurt people I love. He's welcome…

His right to coexist is not in question.

Have a group come after you and get you fired, and see how much "peaceful coexistence" you get from that.

Re: The Excuses for Purging Brendan Eich Are the Old Excuses for Firing Gays

#54

Post by dllthomas »

chc wrote: post #49
dllthomas wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those raising a stink assert that "political sympathy" (to the extent of taking action to support it) with a proposal to strip rights from a portion of the population is intolerance of that subpopulation. And certainly it's the case that one needn't be intolerant in every possible way to be intolerant.

I am somewhat sympathetic to that view, but that was a long time ago. If he has been 100% tolerant for almost six years now, this action seems more like a very belated punishment for past intolerance than an attempt to force him to be tolerant, which he was already doing .

Sure, I don't have enough insight into the goings on at Mozilla to say. That said, being a lightening rod and dealing with PR stuff effectively is part of the job of being a CEO, and arguably if he'd performed the job better he'd still hold it - I'm not sure the outcome is ideal, but I'm not going to freak out about it either.

Re: The Excuses for Purging Brendan Eich Are the Old Excuses for Firing Gays

#55

Post by koenigdavidmj »

devindotcom wrote: post #37
koenigdavidmj wrote: post #12

The lesson Mozilla learned here is that the angry Internet mob can get whatever it wants. It doesn't really matter which side of history the mob is on. The lesson that other boards learned with this is not 'hire socially-conscious people', but 'keep your head down and maintain the status quo'. Fifty years ago a similar uproar would have developed if a company hired a black CEO. The press release announcing his remova…

I don't understand why the "angry internet mob" is any different from thousands of people boycotting a company for unfair labor practices, or doing a sit-in somewhere, or picketing? How is the internet mob different from these other forms of nonviolent political activism?

My point was that conservatives can do witch hunts too. Mozilla gave every indication that it just gave up when the pressure overcame them, rather than actually deciding this on its merits, bad publicity be damned.

Re: The Excuses for Purging Brendan Eich Are the Old Excuses for Firing Gays

#56

Post by stcredzero »

differentView wrote: post #34
news_to_me wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If an anti-gay person works at my company, his being anti-gay will have no affect on my livelihood. People with a gay agenda have made a choice to stand in the way of progress. That means their actions negatively affect the people around them, malevolent. They're entitled to no consideration, because it's their choice to ostracize themselves for their ignorance. It should be seen the same as firing someone who habit…

Do you believe gay people being allowed to marry negatively affect you? If so, how?

Do you believe gay people being allowed to marry negatively affect you? If so, how?

Is your immediate reaction to someone talking about a general principle to always assume it's cryptic opposition to your particular political views?

Re: The Excuses for Purging Brendan Eich Are the Old Excuses for Firing Gays

#57

Post by dragonwriter »

ryandvm wrote: post #30
koenigdavidmj wrote: post #12

The lesson Mozilla learned here is that the angry Internet mob can get whatever it wants. It doesn't really matter which side of history the mob is on. The lesson that other boards learned with this is not 'hire socially-conscious people', but 'keep your head down and maintain the status quo'. Fifty years ago a similar uproar would have developed if a company hired a black CEO. The press release announcing his remova…

Indeed. I don't agree with Eich's personal views on gay marriage, but I'm kind of disappointed that everybody seems to be cool with getting people fired because they stood up for their personal views. People are comfortable with his firing because they feel his views are "wrong", but pretty much all progressive views, by definition, started out as "wrong" as well...

> I don't agree with Eich's personal views on gay marriage, but I'm kind of disappointed that everybody seems to be cool with getting people fired because they stood up for their personal views.

No one got fired here. Brendan Eich quit a job that, from all reports, he was dubious about taking from day one.

Re: The Excuses for Purging Brendan Eich Are the Old Excuses for Firing Gays

#58

Post by 001sky »

jessaustin wrote: post #20
rjknight wrote: post #11

I think we should be very wary of mainstream media coverage (and yes, Slate is mainstream media here) of this issue, because writers like William Saletan know relatively little about the specifics of Mozilla, technology or the personalities involved. This article ignores the specifics of the case and places it entirely within existing "culture war" political narratives. It's designed to present the story to people wi…

Thanks I had missed that. The crux of the issue, for me: Most (or perhaps all) of the Mozillians who tweeted this were employed by the Mozilla Foundation, not the Mozilla Corporation which means that they report to the executive director of the foundation and not to the CEO. As foundation employees, they did not share the same org chart as Brendan. I didn't realize the foundation had so many employees.

So, Mozilla is a three headed monster:

> Executive Chairwoman, Mozilla Foundation (Mitchell Baker)

> Executive Director, Mozilla Foundation (Mark Surman)

> CEO Mozilla Corporation (New position, 2008)

Mark Surman's employees using @mozilla handles were calling for the resignation of a competing CEO?

Am i reading this right? In other words this was under political air-cover.

The Mozilla Foundation now focuses solely on governance and policy issues...

The corporate governance here actually seems like a problem.

The new CEO and the New COO of @mozilla are going to look at this with ???

Re: The Excuses for Purging Brendan Eich Are the Old Excuses for Firing Gays

#59

Post by eropple »

stcredzero wrote: post #53
eropple wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This "coexistence" mischaracterization is silly. His right to coexist is not in question. But we are under no obligation to patronize an organization that puts people whose worldviews are at odds with ours in ways that damage people we care about. I feel no ethical compulsion to associate with or enrich (because his salary's paid for by my eyeballs if I use Firefox) people who want to hurt people I love. He's welcome…

His right to coexist is not in question. Have a group come after you and get you fired, and see how much "peaceful coexistence" you get from that.

First: he didn't get fired. Nobody in a position to know has even suggested that they requested his resignation. Everything I've read points to that Mozilla wanted him to stay. So framing it as "oh, they got him fired" is just plain disingenuous.

Second: Is he being harassed at home? Is he getting swatted? Are people throwing rocks through his windows? Then those people should be arrested, because that's a crime. But quitting your job because you can't deal with people who are pissed off over your desire to hurt people is not something I will shed tears over.

This is no different from refusing to patronize the corner store near me because the owner's a jerk. Neither he nor Eich are entitled to my business.

Re: The Excuses for Purging Brendan Eich Are the Old Excuses for Firing Gays

#60

Post by dllthomas »

stcredzero wrote: post #52
dllthomas wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't placing "such a great engineer" in a CEO role already mean he's not being applied to engineering tasks?

Managing engineers with a good understanding of what they do is a very valuable skill.

Which he was already doing, as CTO.
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