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I wonder how things may have played out had Brendan Eich still been at the reins (Serious comment, not some challenge to test how quickly Godwin's law can be i

I wonder how things may have played out had Brendan Eich still been at the reins (Serious comment, not some challenge to test how quickly Godwin's law can be invoked)

skyfaller 6y ago
If the result of Eich being in charge would have been Firefox being bundled with a cryptocurrency, as Brave is, then I think we dodged a fucking bullet there.
- jopsen 6y ago
  I suspect brave could do things firefox couldn't.. it rather wasn't willing to risk doing. I suspect adblocking and anti tracking features might have been higher on the list.
unreal37 6y ago
How you can separate out the CEO Brendan Eich from the man who donated to block gay marriage in California though? https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/28/after-supporting-prop-8-brendan-eich-comes-under-fire-from-mozilla-employees-upon-ceo-appointment/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/28/after-supporting-prop-8-br...
- skinkestek 6y ago
  Better opsec on Brendans part. Don't hire people who look for something to be insulted by. Stronger laws to protect peoples personal lives from media and activists.
  - skinkestek 6y ago
    Surprisingly many upvotes, so I think it might be good to clarify something: > Don't hire people who look for something to be insulted by. For context: I used to be like that, looking for a fight, even though it was for different cause. I don't believe in behaving that way anymore, and I think I might have done more harm than good back then even if I had the best intentions.
- kilburn 6y ago
  By fighting the issue instead of the man, just like with any other issue. Vetoing people at work for their political views is much worse in my opinion. Context: I am a pro-gay marriage person in a country where it was legalized in 2004.
- tasuki 6y ago
  I'm for gay marriage and downvoted you. How can you conflate the two aspects? Is it not possible for a person to hold backwards views about certain things and still be a good CEO?
  - threatofrain 6y ago
    But would he be a credible steward of gay employees if he doesn't even think they should engage in marriage, and by extension forge families? Credibility is the job of the CEO, including moral credibility. Having a vision which encompasses society and life is part of the responsibility of a company which has been granted license to operate in society. What is Brandan Eich's vision of gay family life? One that should be banned by law, a cause which is serious enough to warrant his financial contribution? His actions as a man of experienced wisdom says Yes.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      Any more than you can be a credible steward of Republican employees as a Democrat? It is possible to set aside your personal views of people on the job…
  - damnyou 6y ago
    It's actually not, no. A CEO is the public face of a company. This is less true of other C-level positions — Eich as CTO was more ok.
- yodelshady 6y ago
  It's hardly ideal. But, to counter - you don't have to trust Brendan Eich that there's no anti-gay, anti-Uyghur, etc code in Firefox. You do have to trust google, because of the telemetry. Trusting any powerful party based on public, virtuous statements is... "optimistic" is one word. "Reckless" is another.
mook 6y ago
Brendan Eich was a decent CTO, as far as I could tell from the outside; while I disagreed with him on some technical details (e.g. single threaded everything didn't seem that great), at least he seemed to be able to justify his decisions. As a CEO of a very public company, though, I feel like he wasn't quite up for the job — mostly in that he couldn't respond to public criticism fast enough and let it build up instead. I think things would worked out better for everybody if he had stayed as the CTO, but that's the power of hindsight. That and it was under his watch that they didn't invest into mobile early enough (I'm thinking of Minimo here, which would have been for Windows CE — not helpful in itself, but it would have helped slim down Gecko, probably).

I wonder how things may have played out had Brendan Eich still been at the reins (Serious comment, not some challenge to test how quickly Godwin's law can be invoked)

skyfaller 6y ago

If the result of Eich being in charge would have been Firefox being bundled with a cryptocurrency, as Brave is, then I think we dodged a fucking bullet there.

jopsen 6y ago
I suspect brave could do things firefox couldn't.. it rather wasn't willing to risk doing. I suspect adblocking and anti tracking features might have been higher on the list.

unreal37 6y ago

How you can separate out the CEO Brendan Eich from the man who donated to block gay marriage in California though? https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/28/after-supporting-prop-8-brendan-eich-comes-under-fire-from-mozilla-employees-upon-ceo-appointment/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/28/after-supporting-prop-8-br...

skinkestek 6y ago
Better opsec on Brendans part. Don't hire people who look for something to be insulted by. Stronger laws to protect peoples personal lives from media and activists.
- skinkestek 6y ago
  Surprisingly many upvotes, so I think it might be good to clarify something: > Don't hire people who look for something to be insulted by. For context: I used to be like that, looking for a fight, even though it was for different cause. I don't believe in behaving that way anymore, and I think I might have done more harm than good back then even if I had the best intentions.
kilburn 6y ago
By fighting the issue instead of the man, just like with any other issue. Vetoing people at work for their political views is much worse in my opinion. Context: I am a pro-gay marriage person in a country where it was legalized in 2004.
tasuki 6y ago
I'm for gay marriage and downvoted you. How can you conflate the two aspects? Is it not possible for a person to hold backwards views about certain things and still be a good CEO?
- threatofrain 6y ago
  But would he be a credible steward of gay employees if he doesn't even think they should engage in marriage, and by extension forge families? Credibility is the job of the CEO, including moral credibility. Having a vision which encompasses society and life is part of the responsibility of a company which has been granted license to operate in society. What is Brandan Eich's vision of gay family life? One that should be banned by law, a cause which is serious enough to warrant his financial contribution? His actions as a man of experienced wisdom says Yes.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Any more than you can be a credible steward of Republican employees as a Democrat? It is possible to set aside your personal views of people on the job…
- damnyou 6y ago
  It's actually not, no. A CEO is the public face of a company. This is less true of other C-level positions — Eich as CTO was more ok.
yodelshady 6y ago
It's hardly ideal. But, to counter - you don't have to trust Brendan Eich that there's no anti-gay, anti-Uyghur, etc code in Firefox. You do have to trust google, because of the telemetry. Trusting any powerful party based on public, virtuous statements is... "optimistic" is one word. "Reckless" is another.

mook 6y ago

Brendan Eich was a decent CTO, as far as I could tell from the outside; while I disagreed with him on some technical details (e.g. single threaded everything didn't seem that great), at least he seemed to be able to justify his decisions. As a CEO of a very public company, though, I feel like he wasn't quite up for the job — mostly in that he couldn't respond to public criticism fast enough and let it build up instead. I think things would worked out better for everybody if he had stayed as the CTO, but that's the power of hindsight. That and it was under his watch that they didn't invest into mobile early enough (I'm thinking of Minimo here, which would have been for Windows CE — not helpful in itself, but it would have helped slim down Gecko, probably).