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When you're a CEO, you're also the face of the company. His "personal contributions" were to support banning of same sex marriage, and it was just 5 years earli

When you're a CEO, you're also the face of the company. His "personal contributions" were to support banning of same sex marriage, and it was just 5 years earlier. That's just unacceptable, even in 2014. It really showed how politics work inside companies like Mozilla. But you're not alone. That year lots of users dropped Firefox.

Amezarak 5y ago
Proposition 8 passed in California 52-47. [1] Slightly more than seven million people voted for it. That's a lot of people who did something unacceptable. I wish all disagreements didn't have to be framed in such stark terms. I don't live in or care much for California, so I had no dog in the fight, but I also did not like the gang-up on Eich and I don't understand the argument that he had to be kicked out because of how people might feel - it seems like it's the default position to work for someone who thinks you shouldn't have some right or another, or some other person should have more rights than you. It did not affect my usage of Firefox. I did eventually download Brave and I use it for maybe a quarter of my web browsing, but that happened because a site I like stopped working in Firefox. I use Edge for a lot of other stuff - known safe sites, basically. I use Firefox simply out of inertia and because I like NoScript and the exact way NoScript works. A lot of the stuff I like about it is gone now, as they keep removing features I use. I don't have any affection for Mozilla or Firefox anymore. Metrics-based development is always a fool's errand - removing feature after feature that 1% of your install base uses is a great way to lose half your users when you remove > 50 features. In the end, I don't think Mozilla understood where their strength came from. They weren't installed by default. They didn't have massive marketing campaigns like Google/Chrome. They weren't bundled in installers. They had one thing: power users, and power users evangelizing to their friends and family. They've alienated power users, and now all that's left is people running on inertia and people really worried about open source. Not a winning combination. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  Eich didn't just vote for Proposition 8. He publicly materially supported it. Refusing to follow someone isn't ganging up on them. Curtailing their civil rights is. Eich chose to resign.
  - Amezarak 5y ago
    Voting directly affects the outcome. Donating money indirectly supports the outcome. In the end, only votes decide the outcome - many times the side with more money loses. The side with more votes always wins, unless you count the Electoral College. A vote is a much more material support than a 1k donation. > He publicly materially supported it. Nobody knew about Eich's 2008 donation until 2014, years later. Many people who worked with him and knew him for years, like Baker, expressed surprise and said they had no idea he held these views. > Eich chose to resign. Eich was allowed to resign rather than be fired. When you have the board and Executive Chairwoman saying that it's impossible for you to work there with your views, and you resign, that's not exactly a free choice. > Curtailing their civil rights is. I don't think we can put things beyond debate simply by declaring them a civil right. The entire debate was over whether it was/should be a right or not. I don't think this is a productive way to frame it. It just leads to argument rather than discussion, and persecution rather than post-victory rapprochement. I also don't think it's uncommon. I find it hard to think of someone I've worked for or even know that would not like to curtail what I regard as my civil rights in one area or another.
    - pseudalopex 5y ago
      Votes are private. Donations are public. The LA Times reported Eich's donation in 2012. Mozilla leadership including Baker knew about it before 2014. Eich knowing not to broadcast his support for discrimination is the minimum expected of most employees. Eich himself said he resigned because the controversy was hurting Mozilla. He also said it would have been illegal to fire him. Baker publicly supported Eich's promotion.[1] At least before he botched a predictable and winnable PR crisis. Other people did say his actions and standing by them meant he couldn't credibly promote Mozilla's claimed values. And his belief his discrimination wasn't discriminatory called into question how he could do the CEO's job of preventing discrimination. But basically no one said he couldn't work there with his views. He remained CTO after his views and actions were widely known. And board members asked him to stay in another role after he resigned. The US Supreme Court recognized marriage as a civil right in 1967. It's the law of the land. And same sex marriage was legal in California before Proposition 8. Believing reducing some people's rights is justified doesn't make it not reducing their rights. And calling it what it is isn't persecution. I've never worked for someone who publicly said I should be a 2nd class citizen. I feel sorry for you if you have. It sounds like you might have your own definition of civil rights though. [1] https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2014/03/26/ https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2014/03/26/

Amezarak 5y ago

Proposition 8 passed in California 52-47. [1] Slightly more than seven million people voted for it. That's a lot of people who did something unacceptable. I wish all disagreements didn't have to be framed in such stark terms. I don't live in or care much for California, so I had no dog in the fight, but I also did not like the gang-up on Eich and I don't understand the argument that he had to be kicked out because of how people might feel - it seems like it's the default position to work for someone who thinks you shouldn't have some right or another, or some other person should have more rights than you. It did not affect my usage of Firefox. I did eventually download Brave and I use it for maybe a quarter of my web browsing, but that happened because a site I like stopped working in Firefox. I use Edge for a lot of other stuff - known safe sites, basically. I use Firefox simply out of inertia and because I like NoScript and the exact way NoScript works. A lot of the stuff I like about it is gone now, as they keep removing features I use. I don't have any affection for Mozilla or Firefox anymore. Metrics-based development is always a fool's errand - removing feature after feature that 1% of your install base uses is a great way to lose half your users when you remove > 50 features. In the end, I don't think Mozilla understood where their strength came from. They weren't installed by default. They didn't have massive marketing campaigns like Google/Chrome. They weren't bundled in installers. They had one thing: power users, and power users evangelizing to their friends and family. They've alienated power users, and now all that's left is people running on inertia and people really worried about open source. Not a winning combination. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8

pseudalopex 5y ago
Eich didn't just vote for Proposition 8. He publicly materially supported it. Refusing to follow someone isn't ganging up on them. Curtailing their civil rights is. Eich chose to resign.
- Amezarak 5y ago
  Voting directly affects the outcome. Donating money indirectly supports the outcome. In the end, only votes decide the outcome - many times the side with more money loses. The side with more votes always wins, unless you count the Electoral College. A vote is a much more material support than a 1k donation. > He publicly materially supported it. Nobody knew about Eich's 2008 donation until 2014, years later. Many people who worked with him and knew him for years, like Baker, expressed surprise and said they had no idea he held these views. > Eich chose to resign. Eich was allowed to resign rather than be fired. When you have the board and Executive Chairwoman saying that it's impossible for you to work there with your views, and you resign, that's not exactly a free choice. > Curtailing their civil rights is. I don't think we can put things beyond debate simply by declaring them a civil right. The entire debate was over whether it was/should be a right or not. I don't think this is a productive way to frame it. It just leads to argument rather than discussion, and persecution rather than post-victory rapprochement. I also don't think it's uncommon. I find it hard to think of someone I've worked for or even know that would not like to curtail what I regard as my civil rights in one area or another.
  - pseudalopex 5y ago
    Votes are private. Donations are public. The LA Times reported Eich's donation in 2012. Mozilla leadership including Baker knew about it before 2014. Eich knowing not to broadcast his support for discrimination is the minimum expected of most employees. Eich himself said he resigned because the controversy was hurting Mozilla. He also said it would have been illegal to fire him. Baker publicly supported Eich's promotion.[1] At least before he botched a predictable and winnable PR crisis. Other people did say his actions and standing by them meant he couldn't credibly promote Mozilla's claimed values. And his belief his discrimination wasn't discriminatory called into question how he could do the CEO's job of preventing discrimination. But basically no one said he couldn't work there with his views. He remained CTO after his views and actions were widely known. And board members asked him to stay in another role after he resigned. The US Supreme Court recognized marriage as a civil right in 1967. It's the law of the land. And same sex marriage was legal in California before Proposition 8. Believing reducing some people's rights is justified doesn't make it not reducing their rights. And calling it what it is isn't persecution. I've never worked for someone who publicly said I should be a 2nd class citizen. I feel sorry for you if you have. It sounds like you might have your own definition of civil rights though. [1] https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2014/03/26/ https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2014/03/26/