7 ms·

Eich chose to step down due to community pressure; the board never tried to push him out. Mozilla was hemorrhaging users due to completely ignoring their concer

by byuu 11y ago

Eich chose to step down due to community pressure; the board never tried to push him out. Mozilla was hemorrhaging users due to completely ignoring their concerns for years before that bigot left.

chris_wot 11y ago
Three of them resigned when Brendan joined the board. To say that the board never tried to push him out sort of glosses over that point.
- byuu 11y ago
  They all said they didn't resign because of Eich. Sure, they could have been lying. But I'd rather not get into divining intentions and back room discussions none of us were privy to. I'm all for freedom of speech and quite opposed to the recent college campus behavior of throwing huge fits over anything remotely politically incorrect. Anyone is free to think whatever they want about my marriage and that of others, but the law should always treat people equally. When Eich donated money (and thus most certainly voted) to literally strip existing equal rights away from a minority, it ceased to be about just speech and opinion, and instead became something quite vindictive and nasty. I'm not going to get into whether it was right to pressure a company over a certain number of employees and/or when they reach a certain position in the company; I'm just going to say that I don't care for Eich's donation to Prop 8 (nor for his design of Javascript, but that's a separate discussion.)
  - rewqfdsa 11y ago
    This idea that certain political positions are about "rights", so we can't talk about them, vote against them, or donate to organizations opposing them, is sickening. Imagine your being ousted from your job for donating to the EFF, because the EFF supports encryption and is used by terrorists? Your donation to the EFF is literally killing babies. Can't you see you're abusing the language of equal rights to demonize your political opponents? Donating to a mainstream cause is a perfectly normal thing to do. I hope that society never moves against any of your current positions and retrospectively calls you a monster.
    - byuu 11y ago
      > so we can't talk about them You're absolutely perfectly fine talking about them. Anyone who disagrees doesn't value the freedom of speech. (And sadly, that's becoming quite common on college campuses these days. But I don't align myself with them.) > vote against them, or donate to organizations opposing them, is sickening. Voting to take rights away from consenting adults because you don't agree with their lifestyles is sickening. I'm not sure how I'd feel about a donation to an organization opposing rights in general. But this was specifically targeted toward persuading voters (with shady, misleading and outright false advertisements) to vote to take away rights. Not quite the same as just saying "we oppose this." This crossed the boundary from speech and became action. A very harmful action that demeaned 5-10% of the population. > Imagine your being ousted from your job for donating to the EFF False equivalence. The EFF isn't lobbying to strip a minority of their pre-existing rights, because "eww" or "religion." Further, he wasn't ousted from his job. People complained, so he chose to resign. If it's freedom of speech for Eich to make that donation, then it's freedom of speech for people to protest that donation. You can't eat your cake and have it too. > Donating to a mainstream cause is a perfectly normal thing to do. Majority support does not justify what is right. > I hope that society never moves against any of your current positions and retrospectively calls you a monster. I've gotten into plenty of trouble and lost supporters over my positions against political correctness. I don't think I'll ever be in a position as powerful as CEO, though. Still, I hope no one ever pesters me to resign from my job. However, I would never, ever vote to take rights away from a group of people I disliked, unless there were lack of consent issues (eg peodphilia) involved. So I don't believe I'll ever be in the same exact position as Eich.
      - blisterpeanuts 11y ago
        Eich was hounded out of his job. It's absolutely clear from the sequence of events. You can argue that he quit his job to end the controversy, but that amounts to the same thing. In 2008, Eich's was the mainstream view. Even Barack Obama stated in 2008 that he believed marriage should be between a man and a woman. It's ridiculous that someone should be considered an unacceptable type of person to be CEO because he donated $1,000 to a successful, mainstream proposition that passed, in a state of 35 million people, on an issue that Obama also agreed with! Nor did the bill "take away rights". Did all those people who quit the board or said nasty things about Brendan Eich vote for McCain-Palin in the 2008 elections? Highly doubtful. Mr. Eich in fact stated that his personal views would not color his performance in a leadership position, and that he had nothing against homosexuality. When it became clear that he could not shake the controversy, he chose the high moral ground of resigning. Losing this man, the inventor of Javascript and a key player at Mozilla.org for many years, was a real blow to the organization. It's never a good idea to politicize a technology organization whose mission is to create free and open tools for everyone, to be used all over the world by all sorts of people.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    Really? Where did they say that? I read they couldn't comment because they weren't authorised to say anything. And no less than the New Yorker said "the company [Mozilla] claimed, rather implausibly, that the resignations were unrelated to the C.E.O. search." [1] John Lilly has since given statements that he resigned because of Eich's stance of Proposition 8. [2] 1. http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/how-mozilla-lost-its-c-e-o http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/how-mozilla-lost-... 2. https://mobile.twitter.com/johnolilly/status/451816637113438208 https://mobile.twitter.com/johnolilly/status/451816637113438...
    - cpeterso 11y ago
      > John Lilly has since given statements that he resigned because of Eich's stance of Proposition 8. The tweets you link to do not say Lilly resigned because of Eich's stance on Prop 8. Lilly said, "this was not about political values but about leadership when confronted with a difficult conversation."
      - chris_wot 11y ago
        That's dissembling. The "difficult conversation" was about Prop 8 and Brendan Eich's views on gay marriage.
        BrendanEich 11y ago
        No, John Lilly did not mention Prop 8 while on the Mozilla board, or resign over anything to do with it. He didn't see it coming either.
        chris_wot 11y ago
        I stand corrected then! Thanks Brendan.
  - sangnoir 11y ago
    > it ceased to be about just speech and opinion, and instead became something quite vindictive and nasty. A few points to ponder (from a non-American): 1. It was a bad precedent. How would you feel about pro-lifers hounding a CEO out because of a donation? 2. His opinion is/was not extreme or unusual. About half of the American population share his views. 3. Is it reasonable to expect the full-range personal of views (and voting patterns) of a CEO to be agreeable to every employee? My personal take is that the episode showed that no one has spine at Mozilla. Around the same time, people were raising concerns about Condoleezza Rice being on Dropbox's board; Dropbox's response was "we value her, she's not going anywhere" - and that was the end of it. I shouldn't have to say this, since what I said should stand on it's own merit: but I disagree with Eich's politics. However I don't think that it had any bearing of his capability and execution as a CEO. If my boss is professional & courteous when dealing with me, I couldn't care less if he were a KKK Grand Dragon.
    - byuu 11y ago
      > How would you feel about pro-lifers hounding a CEO out because of a donation? This is difficult to compare. A donation to keep an existing right versus a donation to take an existing right away. For these to compare, it would have to be a donation toward a proposition that stripped women of the right not to have an abortion, which is nonsensical. > His opinion is/was not extreme or unusual. That's a horrible justification. There used to be majority support for slavery, segregation, anti-miscegenation, etc. > Is it reasonable to expect the full-range personal of views (and voting patterns) of a CEO to be agreeable to every employee? Like I said, I didn't want to get into who should be able to say what when. But if it's free speech for Eich to make that donation, then it's definitely free speech for people to protest against him for making it as well. Again, no one forced him out. He resigned voluntarily. The people complaining held zero power in Mozilla. > If my boss is professional & courteous when dealing with me, I couldn't care less if he were a KKK Grand Dragon. Even if you were a black employee? I'm not sure I could be so magnanimous, but kudos to you for that :D
      - sangnoir 11y ago
        FYI: I am a black employee, but as I said, not American. It goes without saying that I'm speaking only for myself. YMMV
  - blisterpeanuts 11y ago
    Hounding Eich out of his job was bad for Mozilla. They lost my support and that of many others who were repelled by the political correctness slant of the organization. Those board members who resigned -- good riddance. The gay employee or employees who said they couldn't work for him -- go work somewhere else. Didn't Obama also say in 2008, before his views "evolved", that marriage = man + woman? Didn't the proposition pass, meaning a majority of California voters agreed with Eich and Obama? Partisan politics and social justice causes have no place in a technology organization. Obviously that doesn't mean, injustice is OK. But freedom of speech and freedom to hold one's own views on a subject without fear of being fired or pressured to quit should be held sacred. Bye, Mozilla.
    - BrendanEich 11y ago
      Thanks for your support. One small corrective point that I think is important: I know of no LGBT employees who worked for me and said they couldn't keep working for me. I had conspicuous support from some really good LGBT-identifying folks (who've all since left, if I'm not mistaken). The Mozilla Foundation (not Corporation) employees who tweeted asking me to resign in the first week (on March 27, 2014) never worked for me. I don't know and don't care who among them identified as LGBT or anything. They too seem to have mostly left. I was at Mozilla from founding onward for over 16 years, by the way.
  - BrendanEich 11y ago
    "literally" in front of "strip... rights" is a red flag for b.s. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9748538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9748538
- BrendanEich 11y ago
  No, the three board members resigned before I was appointed. They did not resign to try to push me out, since I was not "in" yet. Two of them did not resign because of anything about me in particular. One (Ellen Siminoff) had planned to leave at the end of 2013, and since she wasn't staying, she didn't want to vote to appoint me only to depart right after voting. That was a clean situation. I'm bound by non-disclosure not to comment on the other two cases, but this much I'll say based on public info disclosed by others: John Lilly left the board rather than appoint me, as he implied with some tweets at the time. His leaving had nothing to do with Prop 8; he never mentioned it. Here's what I think happened in the press: Alistair Barr of the WSJ was working on a story about Mozilla being in trouble because Google would not renew its search deal for Firefox, which was due to expire later in 2014 (a highly unlikely claim, but a good link-bait thesis); and also because Mozilla had run for over a year without a new permanent CEO since Gary Kovacs left (true, and a cause for concern among many). Barr's story was under construction at least as early as February 2014, and it got hot and neared publication later in March as board members resigned. Those of us at high levels at Mozilla believed someone at or near board level who had recently left the company was sending rumors to Barr. This WSJ story broke on March 28th, and it was summarized at that end of my first week as CEO as "board members resigned a week ago", but then one more week passed, and the Prop 8 story grew bigger due to okcupid, and the "week ago" became bogusly rewritten ("retconned") in many online accounts and comment threads as "three board members resigned over Prop 8". That never happened. No board members resigned over Prop 8. Mozilla's FAQ on the whole affair says this plainly, and it's accurate on this point.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    In that case I stand corrected and obviously got my facts very wrong. I appreciate you clarifying this matter!
BrendanEich 11y ago
You have no idea why I stepped down, or about anything else that went on behind closed doors. People I trust at Mozilla told me there was no user hemorrhage either while I was CEO or (due to the #Nozilla counter-action) immediately after I left. From statcounter and netmarketshare (both not great as reliable measures; each uses different methods), anyone can see that user attrition was ongoing and worsened in the last two years, with a little temporary recovery when Yahoo! started distributing and promoting Firefox (this recovery seems to have ended). But there are too many confounders that could be to blame, including Flash-related problems, the lack of process-separation (increasingly required by Google web apps), and Australis. Calling me a name because you assume things about me not in evidence simply makes you look like the only one here who hates out-group members because they don't conform to your in-group. Save it.
- near 11y ago
  > You have no idea why I stepped down, or about anything else that went on behind closed doors. I'm going off what Mozilla has said publicly: "Brendan was not fired and was not asked by the Board to resign. Brendan voluntarily submitted his resignation. The Board acted in response by inviting him to remain at Mozilla in another C-level position. Brendan declined that offer. The Board respects his decision." Source: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignation/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignat... You're absolutely right that I have no idea what happened behind closed doors. If you'd like to speak to that, I'd be very interested in listening. What you've said in this thread doesn't contradict anything I've said about you voluntarily resigning. > Calling me a name because you assume things about me What is there to assume? You donated money to a group that was formed for the sole purpose of taking rights away from people. Rights that you enjoy, rights that caused harm to no one, rights that had no effect on your life otherwise. There's nothing at all ambiguous about what you did. It was an objectively terrible thing to do. I cried on November 2008. That was one of the hardest months of my life, and I don't even live in California. I can't imagine how much harder it was for all the families trapped in limbo as the courts decided whether to dissolve their marriages. A bigot is "a person who is intolerant of any ideas other than his or her own." You don't like gays marrying? I don't even care, good for you. But what you did is even worse than that: you took action to legally prevent them from enjoying the same rights you have. I'm sorry if you don't like the word, but you donated that money, and I didn't write the dictionary. I hope one day you'll come to understand what you've done and apologize, but it's been seven years, so I'm not holding my breath. And the "intolerant of intolerance" response is nonsense designed to do nothing more than shut down debate. > Save it. I'd love to. On this issue, you lost. Marriage equality is the law of the land, and you can't vote our rights away this time. Personally, I'd like nothing more than to not hear your name again. But every article on Mozilla at HN brings you up again and again. (And of course, we're also stuck with Javascript.)

by byuu 11y ago

Eich chose to step down due to community pressure; the board never tried to push him out. Mozilla was hemorrhaging users due to completely ignoring their concerns for years before that bigot left.

chris_wot 11y ago

Three of them resigned when Brendan joined the board. To say that the board never tried to push him out sort of glosses over that point.

byuu 11y ago
They all said they didn't resign because of Eich. Sure, they could have been lying. But I'd rather not get into divining intentions and back room discussions none of us were privy to. I'm all for freedom of speech and quite opposed to the recent college campus behavior of throwing huge fits over anything remotely politically incorrect. Anyone is free to think whatever they want about my marriage and that of others, but the law should always treat people equally. When Eich donated money (and thus most certainly voted) to literally strip existing equal rights away from a minority, it ceased to be about just speech and opinion, and instead became something quite vindictive and nasty. I'm not going to get into whether it was right to pressure a company over a certain number of employees and/or when they reach a certain position in the company; I'm just going to say that I don't care for Eich's donation to Prop 8 (nor for his design of Javascript, but that's a separate discussion.)
- rewqfdsa 11y ago
  This idea that certain political positions are about "rights", so we can't talk about them, vote against them, or donate to organizations opposing them, is sickening. Imagine your being ousted from your job for donating to the EFF, because the EFF supports encryption and is used by terrorists? Your donation to the EFF is literally killing babies. Can't you see you're abusing the language of equal rights to demonize your political opponents? Donating to a mainstream cause is a perfectly normal thing to do. I hope that society never moves against any of your current positions and retrospectively calls you a monster.
  - byuu 11y ago
    > so we can't talk about them You're absolutely perfectly fine talking about them. Anyone who disagrees doesn't value the freedom of speech. (And sadly, that's becoming quite common on college campuses these days. But I don't align myself with them.) > vote against them, or donate to organizations opposing them, is sickening. Voting to take rights away from consenting adults because you don't agree with their lifestyles is sickening. I'm not sure how I'd feel about a donation to an organization opposing rights in general. But this was specifically targeted toward persuading voters (with shady, misleading and outright false advertisements) to vote to take away rights. Not quite the same as just saying "we oppose this." This crossed the boundary from speech and became action. A very harmful action that demeaned 5-10% of the population. > Imagine your being ousted from your job for donating to the EFF False equivalence. The EFF isn't lobbying to strip a minority of their pre-existing rights, because "eww" or "religion." Further, he wasn't ousted from his job. People complained, so he chose to resign. If it's freedom of speech for Eich to make that donation, then it's freedom of speech for people to protest that donation. You can't eat your cake and have it too. > Donating to a mainstream cause is a perfectly normal thing to do. Majority support does not justify what is right. > I hope that society never moves against any of your current positions and retrospectively calls you a monster. I've gotten into plenty of trouble and lost supporters over my positions against political correctness. I don't think I'll ever be in a position as powerful as CEO, though. Still, I hope no one ever pesters me to resign from my job. However, I would never, ever vote to take rights away from a group of people I disliked, unless there were lack of consent issues (eg peodphilia) involved. So I don't believe I'll ever be in the same exact position as Eich.
    - blisterpeanuts 11y ago
      Eich was hounded out of his job. It's absolutely clear from the sequence of events. You can argue that he quit his job to end the controversy, but that amounts to the same thing. In 2008, Eich's was the mainstream view. Even Barack Obama stated in 2008 that he believed marriage should be between a man and a woman. It's ridiculous that someone should be considered an unacceptable type of person to be CEO because he donated $1,000 to a successful, mainstream proposition that passed, in a state of 35 million people, on an issue that Obama also agreed with! Nor did the bill "take away rights". Did all those people who quit the board or said nasty things about Brendan Eich vote for McCain-Palin in the 2008 elections? Highly doubtful. Mr. Eich in fact stated that his personal views would not color his performance in a leadership position, and that he had nothing against homosexuality. When it became clear that he could not shake the controversy, he chose the high moral ground of resigning. Losing this man, the inventor of Javascript and a key player at Mozilla.org for many years, was a real blow to the organization. It's never a good idea to politicize a technology organization whose mission is to create free and open tools for everyone, to be used all over the world by all sorts of people.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  Really? Where did they say that? I read they couldn't comment because they weren't authorised to say anything. And no less than the New Yorker said "the company [Mozilla] claimed, rather implausibly, that the resignations were unrelated to the C.E.O. search." [1] John Lilly has since given statements that he resigned because of Eich's stance of Proposition 8. [2] 1. http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/how-mozilla-lost-its-c-e-o http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/how-mozilla-lost-... 2. https://mobile.twitter.com/johnolilly/status/451816637113438208 https://mobile.twitter.com/johnolilly/status/451816637113438...
  - cpeterso 11y ago
    > John Lilly has since given statements that he resigned because of Eich's stance of Proposition 8. The tweets you link to do not say Lilly resigned because of Eich's stance on Prop 8. Lilly said, "this was not about political values but about leadership when confronted with a difficult conversation."
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      That's dissembling. The "difficult conversation" was about Prop 8 and Brendan Eich's views on gay marriage.
      - BrendanEich 11y ago
        No, John Lilly did not mention Prop 8 while on the Mozilla board, or resign over anything to do with it. He didn't see it coming either.
        chris_wot 11y ago
        I stand corrected then! Thanks Brendan.
- sangnoir 11y ago
  > it ceased to be about just speech and opinion, and instead became something quite vindictive and nasty. A few points to ponder (from a non-American): 1. It was a bad precedent. How would you feel about pro-lifers hounding a CEO out because of a donation? 2. His opinion is/was not extreme or unusual. About half of the American population share his views. 3. Is it reasonable to expect the full-range personal of views (and voting patterns) of a CEO to be agreeable to every employee? My personal take is that the episode showed that no one has spine at Mozilla. Around the same time, people were raising concerns about Condoleezza Rice being on Dropbox's board; Dropbox's response was "we value her, she's not going anywhere" - and that was the end of it. I shouldn't have to say this, since what I said should stand on it's own merit: but I disagree with Eich's politics. However I don't think that it had any bearing of his capability and execution as a CEO. If my boss is professional & courteous when dealing with me, I couldn't care less if he were a KKK Grand Dragon.
  - byuu 11y ago
    > How would you feel about pro-lifers hounding a CEO out because of a donation? This is difficult to compare. A donation to keep an existing right versus a donation to take an existing right away. For these to compare, it would have to be a donation toward a proposition that stripped women of the right not to have an abortion, which is nonsensical. > His opinion is/was not extreme or unusual. That's a horrible justification. There used to be majority support for slavery, segregation, anti-miscegenation, etc. > Is it reasonable to expect the full-range personal of views (and voting patterns) of a CEO to be agreeable to every employee? Like I said, I didn't want to get into who should be able to say what when. But if it's free speech for Eich to make that donation, then it's definitely free speech for people to protest against him for making it as well. Again, no one forced him out. He resigned voluntarily. The people complaining held zero power in Mozilla. > If my boss is professional & courteous when dealing with me, I couldn't care less if he were a KKK Grand Dragon. Even if you were a black employee? I'm not sure I could be so magnanimous, but kudos to you for that :D
    - sangnoir 11y ago
      FYI: I am a black employee, but as I said, not American. It goes without saying that I'm speaking only for myself. YMMV
- blisterpeanuts 11y ago
  Hounding Eich out of his job was bad for Mozilla. They lost my support and that of many others who were repelled by the political correctness slant of the organization. Those board members who resigned -- good riddance. The gay employee or employees who said they couldn't work for him -- go work somewhere else. Didn't Obama also say in 2008, before his views "evolved", that marriage = man + woman? Didn't the proposition pass, meaning a majority of California voters agreed with Eich and Obama? Partisan politics and social justice causes have no place in a technology organization. Obviously that doesn't mean, injustice is OK. But freedom of speech and freedom to hold one's own views on a subject without fear of being fired or pressured to quit should be held sacred. Bye, Mozilla.
  - BrendanEich 11y ago
    Thanks for your support. One small corrective point that I think is important: I know of no LGBT employees who worked for me and said they couldn't keep working for me. I had conspicuous support from some really good LGBT-identifying folks (who've all since left, if I'm not mistaken). The Mozilla Foundation (not Corporation) employees who tweeted asking me to resign in the first week (on March 27, 2014) never worked for me. I don't know and don't care who among them identified as LGBT or anything. They too seem to have mostly left. I was at Mozilla from founding onward for over 16 years, by the way.
- BrendanEich 11y ago
  "literally" in front of "strip... rights" is a red flag for b.s. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9748538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9748538
BrendanEich 11y ago
No, the three board members resigned before I was appointed. They did not resign to try to push me out, since I was not "in" yet. Two of them did not resign because of anything about me in particular. One (Ellen Siminoff) had planned to leave at the end of 2013, and since she wasn't staying, she didn't want to vote to appoint me only to depart right after voting. That was a clean situation. I'm bound by non-disclosure not to comment on the other two cases, but this much I'll say based on public info disclosed by others: John Lilly left the board rather than appoint me, as he implied with some tweets at the time. His leaving had nothing to do with Prop 8; he never mentioned it. Here's what I think happened in the press: Alistair Barr of the WSJ was working on a story about Mozilla being in trouble because Google would not renew its search deal for Firefox, which was due to expire later in 2014 (a highly unlikely claim, but a good link-bait thesis); and also because Mozilla had run for over a year without a new permanent CEO since Gary Kovacs left (true, and a cause for concern among many). Barr's story was under construction at least as early as February 2014, and it got hot and neared publication later in March as board members resigned. Those of us at high levels at Mozilla believed someone at or near board level who had recently left the company was sending rumors to Barr. This WSJ story broke on March 28th, and it was summarized at that end of my first week as CEO as "board members resigned a week ago", but then one more week passed, and the Prop 8 story grew bigger due to okcupid, and the "week ago" became bogusly rewritten ("retconned") in many online accounts and comment threads as "three board members resigned over Prop 8". That never happened. No board members resigned over Prop 8. Mozilla's FAQ on the whole affair says this plainly, and it's accurate on this point.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  In that case I stand corrected and obviously got my facts very wrong. I appreciate you clarifying this matter!

BrendanEich 11y ago

You have no idea why I stepped down, or about anything else that went on behind closed doors. People I trust at Mozilla told me there was no user hemorrhage either while I was CEO or (due to the #Nozilla counter-action) immediately after I left. From statcounter and netmarketshare (both not great as reliable measures; each uses different methods), anyone can see that user attrition was ongoing and worsened in the last two years, with a little temporary recovery when Yahoo! started distributing and promoting Firefox (this recovery seems to have ended). But there are too many confounders that could be to blame, including Flash-related problems, the lack of process-separation (increasingly required by Google web apps), and Australis. Calling me a name because you assume things about me not in evidence simply makes you look like the only one here who hates out-group members because they don't conform to your in-group. Save it.

near 11y ago
> You have no idea why I stepped down, or about anything else that went on behind closed doors. I'm going off what Mozilla has said publicly: "Brendan was not fired and was not asked by the Board to resign. Brendan voluntarily submitted his resignation. The Board acted in response by inviting him to remain at Mozilla in another C-level position. Brendan declined that offer. The Board respects his decision." Source: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignation/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignat... You're absolutely right that I have no idea what happened behind closed doors. If you'd like to speak to that, I'd be very interested in listening. What you've said in this thread doesn't contradict anything I've said about you voluntarily resigning. > Calling me a name because you assume things about me What is there to assume? You donated money to a group that was formed for the sole purpose of taking rights away from people. Rights that you enjoy, rights that caused harm to no one, rights that had no effect on your life otherwise. There's nothing at all ambiguous about what you did. It was an objectively terrible thing to do. I cried on November 2008. That was one of the hardest months of my life, and I don't even live in California. I can't imagine how much harder it was for all the families trapped in limbo as the courts decided whether to dissolve their marriages. A bigot is "a person who is intolerant of any ideas other than his or her own." You don't like gays marrying? I don't even care, good for you. But what you did is even worse than that: you took action to legally prevent them from enjoying the same rights you have. I'm sorry if you don't like the word, but you donated that money, and I didn't write the dictionary. I hope one day you'll come to understand what you've done and apologize, but it's been seven years, so I'm not holding my breath. And the "intolerant of intolerance" response is nonsense designed to do nothing more than shut down debate. > Save it. I'd love to. On this issue, you lost. Marriage equality is the law of the land, and you can't vote our rights away this time. Personally, I'd like nothing more than to not hear your name again. But every article on Mozilla at HN brings you up again and again. (And of course, we're also stuck with Javascript.)