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Brendan Eich becomes Mozilla CEO
- drawkbox 13y agoExcellent choice, Mozilla is killing it with WebGL + asm.js right now among many other things. Probably the best Firefox and Mozilla has ever been so far. As a game developer targeting WebGL/asm.js what they are doing is awesome, almost like a new console. Both Unity and Unreal have their engines running well on it. Mozilla is the new game developers favorite, Chrome is nice as well but needs something like asm.js optimizations.
- scrollaway 13y agoI hope they reconsider putting more funding and efforts behind Persona. In the list of things that the web needs, it's pretty high.
- doesnt_know 13y agoThey have already "handed it off to the community" so they can focus on other things. It won't be getting more funding or effort from Mozilla. edit: I just reread and realised you said "reconsider" and not "consider". Implying you already knew this, sorry. Here is the blog post in case anyone missed it anyway: http://identity.mozilla.com/post/78873831485/transitioning-persona-to-community-ownership http://identity.mozilla.com/post/78873831485/transitioning-p... and on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7362613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7362613
- Osmose 13y ago> It won't be getting more funding or effort from Mozilla. Correction: There aren't any more employees being paid to develop Persona. Mozilla is still paying for the infrastructure, and the community (which includes paid employees like myself who want to work on Persona on the side) is still working on it. I actually got a pull request merged just yesterday (my first!). There's also ops/IT staff who will be helping to deploy and respond to service disruptions. <hope>We could very well find that after Firefox Accounts is up and running that focusing employees back on Persona is the right thing to do.</hope>
- ianbicking 13y agoBrendan was very involved with the decision to mothball Persona, so you can be pretty sure this won't change that decision.
- NinjaWarrior 13y ago> Both Unity and Unreal have their engines running well Running well? You'll know there are still tough problems next year. No one download 100 MB or 200 MB scripts and assets to play a game. In the past, all such resource rich Flash or Unity Web Player games have failed. No exception. The relief is Mozilla people actually know this problem (I talked with them at GDC). AAA games are just too rich to "browse" on the web. People close their browser windows within several seconds. Typical home internet bandwidth is narrower than Blu-ray or DVD-ROM, even in advanced countries. Furthermore, browser cache can't handle big resources. You won't even gain server costs.
- rybosome 13y agoHave you played a flash game lately? The initial program begins running really quickly, where it then downloads assets using a separate loader while a splash screen displays. Sony also ran into this problem with the massive files (20 - 40 GB) for their disc-based games that are also available for download, but somehow (in many cases) the games can be played while the download is happening, as the most critical parts are downloaded first. Browser gaming may or may not take off, but I really don't see asset-size being the rope with which it hangs itself.
- chimeracoder 13y agoI'm curious how common the CTO→CEO transition is. The only other one that stands out in my mind is Etsy, though I know there are others I'm missing. In any case, congratulations are in order. I don't know much about Eich, but I'm a huge fan of the work Mozilla's done. Their focus on privacy and unrestricted software becomes more relevant by the day, so I have high hopes for this change.
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- ndesaulniers 13y agoDo I smell IPO? :P
- vitno 13y agoI was gonna scoff at you. then I looked at who you were and I was like rolls eyes oh /n...
- ndesaulniers 13y agoFor everyone not in on the internal joke, the reference was to this clip: http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/4578856/mozilla-ceo-on-the-latest-version-of-firefox/#sp=show-clips http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/4578856/mozilla-ceo-on-the-la...
- curiousAl 13y agoBrace for incoming (revived) controversy[1]. 1. http://projects.latimes.com/prop8/donation/8930/ http://projects.latimes.com/prop8/donation/8930/
- mikeash 13y agoWhich controversy you've now made much more likely by bringing it up. Thanks a whole lot.
- nsmnsf 13y agoI agree, knowing that homophobes are in public places of power is a good thing. Eich shouldn't be able to enter a room without being berated, until he concedes and gives up his bigotry.
- anon1385 13y agoI guess 2 years is long enough for most people to have forgotten the brief storm about his homophobic political activities. I wonder if this appointment would have been made 18 months ago when that was still fresh in people's minds. I can't help thinking that it doesn't really fit with the image Mozilla tries to present of themselves. http://tommorris.org/posts/2550 http://tommorris.org/posts/2550
- masterleep 13y agoOh noes! Someone whose political beliefs differ from my own! Burn the infidel!
- anon1385 13y agoEich can rage as much as he likes about inter-racial marriage or homosexual marriage or single parent families or any other topic that gets social conservatives upset. Similarly, other people are free to criticise his views. Especially if he is going to choose to take on the role of being the public face for a large institution.
- twoodfin 13y agoHe didn't "rage" about anything, AFAIK. He made a donation to a political campaign that (at the time) won over a majority of voters in California. Civil society is in real trouble if we can't agree to leave passionate debates like these in the political sphere.
- ossreality 13y ago>we can't agree to leave passionate debates like these in the political sphere. Wave the "straight privilege" flag, wave it proud.
- josefresco 13y agoCivil society is in real trouble if we continue to consider these subjects "political" in nature.
- mavdi 13y agoGood man. Certainly deserved both ways.
- nsmnsf 13y ago> Good man ... I can't even. I'm so incredibly disgusted.
- fidotron 13y agoThis is good, but also somewhat inevitable. It's interesting that all announcements play up the interim CEO's involvement in Firefox OS. I have felt for a long time that it's going after the wrong target in Android, and should instead go up against Chrome OS. Will be interesting to see how the priorities change, if at all.
- fabrice_d 13y agoMozilla is not going "against" others for the sake of it. We build what we feel is better for the web and its users, and we do it where we think we stand a chance of being successful at a large scale. As for proposing an alternative for ChromeOS, I'm mentoring a GSoC project to turn firefox OS into a Desktop Environment (see https://wiki.mozilla.org/Community:SummerOfCode14#Firefox_OS_.2F_Boot2Gecko https://wiki.mozilla.org/Community:SummerOfCode14#Firefox_OS...) which could be a first step in this direction.
- Touche 13y agoWhy do you think Android is the wrong target? Mobile is in much greater of a need for browser disruption than is desktop, where competition is fierce and led to many wonderful innovations.
- pekk 13y agoIt makes sense, given that Mozilla's purpose as an organization seems to have primarily become the promotion of the Javascript language
- pcx 13y agoI beg to differ. Mozilla is making substantial contributions to Web as a whole and Firefox has never been better.
- pekk 13y ago... where the metric for contributions and better is filtered through the idea that web apps should only run on Javascript
- TazeTSchnitzel 13y agoWhat else should they run on? Dart?
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- tinalumfoil 13y agoYes. That's completely logical. Donating to prop 8 and supporting JavaScript go hand in hand! How are people not seeing this? (I honestly can't tell if your comment was a joke)
- sigvef 13y agoGary Kovacs stepped down last summer, does this mean that Mozilla has been without a CEO for almost a year?
- rubiquity 13y agoWhat it means that Brendan Eich has probably been fulfilling the CEO role for at least 6 months or so and this announcement is most likely just a formality due to everything running smoothly. At first I wasn't sure how I felt about this announcement, but then I realized I've actually been quite happy with what Mozilla has been up to for the past year or so, and I imagine that's been under a lot of influence from Eich.
- r0muald 13y ago> Jay Sullivan, our acting CEO during the executive search from <https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/03/24/mozilla-leadership-changes/> https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/03/24/mozilla-leadership-...
- WoodenChair 13y agoI'm guessing this is another hurdle in the Dart VM ever making its way into FireFox.
- Nyubis 13y agoInterestingly enough, it seems like he doubts support from Safari and IE sooner than Firefox: http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/what-javascripts-inventor-really-thinks-about-google-dart-185045 http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/what-java...
- WoodenChair 13y agoYeah I read that a long time ago. That article is really dated...
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- clarkevans 13y agoI hope Brendan restores Mozilla's Persona project. State of the art federated authentication is overly complicated by solutions bundling enterprise features such as resource authorization and directory services. These additional features should be factored out since they can be layered. By contrast, BrowserId's parsimonious take on federated authentication (via an email handle) is refreshing.
- dangoor 13y agoPersona was only recently de-funded, while Brendan was already in charge of Engineering. I don't think it was because of a lack of belief in Persona and the value of pursuing federated identity. I would guess that it came down to priorities.
- quesera 13y agoLooking forward to learning his opinion of "user-enhancing" advertising as part of the Firefox application.
- l33tfr4gg3r 13y agoSo scripted ;)
- avenger123 13y agoThis might be a good thread to turn on the new commenting feature.
- debacle 13y agoNew commenting feature?
- snsr 13y agoAll comments will be censored until up-voted by multiple users with 1000+ karma. These pending comments will only be visible to the same subset of users. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7445761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7445761
- debacle 13y agoThat's a very...interesting way of solving that problem. Thanks for the information.
- seivan 13y agoOne reason to use https://etalio.com https://etalio.com instead of Mozilla Persona is that Ericsson CEO is not a homophobe.
- Osmose 13y agoThe weekly public Mozilla Project meeting has some discussion from the executive team about the change and will have Q/A later on: https://air.mozilla.org/the-monday-meeting-20140324/ https://air.mozilla.org/the-monday-meeting-20140324/
- sos3 13y agoI think Mozilla is making a mistake. I've met Brendan several times and I don't think he'll be a good CEO. His political views are not aligned with Mozilla's views as a company and that might come up as an issue at some point later.
- dhimes 13y agoMODS: This would be a damn fine thread to try out that new comment widget pg was talking about the other day.
- theorique 13y agoOn the one hand, he's homophobic, but on the other hand, he's a great technologist. I guess they sort of balance out, right?
- jaibot 13y agoI'm guessing that his non-straight-people-shouldn't-have-the-same-rights-as-me side is sufficiently outnumbered within Mozilla that he won't rescind any of the equal opportunity/friendliness stuff the organization provides.
- theorique 13y agoAgreed ... bringing that into the workplace would probably contravene a bunch of laws as well as HR regulations. Even though he may be CEO, he's neither above the law nor the rules.
- ianbicking 13y agoA bunch of people here seem to be wondering whether this will mean a substantial change to Mozilla's strategy. This seems very unlikely – Brendan has been on Mozilla's steering committee for many years, and involved in many key decisions in the past year. I expect him becoming CEO means more of the same – if you like what Mozilla is doing, then you should be happy, and if you wish it was doing something else then you should probably look elsewhere.
- edtechdev 13y agoIt means pigs will fly before Firefox supports alternative languages like Dart or Typescript, since JavaScript is his baby. I'd be surprised if asm.js even continues to be supported, he's argued so strenuously against the idea of javascript as assembly, even though there are now almost 100 other languages that compile to javascript: https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-languages-that-compile-to-JS https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-lang... and Google, Microsoft, and Facebook (hack) are all sticking to languages that use types.
- ianbicking 13y agoHe has always very actively supported ASM.js. He's also stepping away from involvement in JavaScript standardization efforts so he can focus on his new position, so this will actually decrease his involvement in those specific areas. None of that probably helps native Dart support at all – there's probably close to zero champions for that sort of thing at Mozilla regardless of Brendan.
- wahnfrieden 13y agoPlease re-title this as "Mozilla News" as per the guidelines, thanks.
- Zikes 13y agoWow, I almost can't tell if I'm on Hacker News or Tumblr. Brendan Eich made a mistake 6 years ago, let all of us Social Justice Warriors break out the pitchforks and show him the true meaning of tolerance! Honestly he's never made any impassioned rants on the subject, never spoken out against gay marriage, never reportedly acted out against any homosexuals in any way. He only made one small donation to what was, at the time, a very popular political campaign. Maybe he was misguided, or misunderstood the reality of what Proposition 8 would mean. The campaigns were certainly filled with misinformation that suckered in a huge number of Californians. I know we technophiles like to think we're cut from a better cloth than that, but there are days we're just as gullible as the next. We're all guilty of lapses of morality at some point in our lives. Hopefully we learn from those mistakes. Hopefully Brendan will, as well.
- m0a0t0 13y agoI think if he had thought better of it he would have released some sort of statement on it. Until then he actively tried to prevent equality and should be called out on it.
- raldi 13y agoWhat the high-rated HN comments are not calling for: * Eich to be stabbed with a pitchfork * His family to be threatened * Protests outside his home * Harassing phone calls * A Firefox boycott * His termination * His demotion What the HN comments are doing: * Quietly acknowledging that the donation happened I think it's a far cry from a witch hunt.
- hashbanged 13y agoWhenever someone starts out their argument by claiming that their opponents are Tumblr SJWs, you know that they're not looking to be convinced otherwise.
- burntroots 13y agoYes, that would require you to prove them wrong. How tedious. They should just accept what you say as fact and be done with it.
- charlieh 13y agoI would lay long odds that upwards of 90% of the U.S. citizens taking Eich to task on this thread voted for Barack Obama. So being opposed to gay marriage disqualifies you from being the CEO of a tech company, but not from being President of the United States. That's a...convenient...position. Just not a rational one. Personally, I don't think the government (and certainly not the Federal government) has any business being involved with marriage in the first place, other than providing a registry for the contracts and a court system to enforce them.
- bluetshirt 13y agoI don't remember when Barack Obama donated money to suppress gay rights.
- charlieh 13y agoState Senators, U.S. Senators, and sitting Presidents don't have to "donate money" to suppress rights. They have more direct mechanisms. Nice attempt to shift the goal posts, though.
- bkor 13y agoYou started comparing Brendan with Obama. If someone says it is different, you're complaining about "nice attempt to shift the goal posts". Kind of easy answer.
- charlieh 13y agoSo, let me get this straight: Giving money to politicians who are against same-sex marriage: bad. Actually being a politician who's against same-sex marriage: perfectly fine. Is that really your thesis here?
- bkor 13y agoNope, I haven't stated that. Your continued way of stating things that haven't been said won't lead you anywhere with me. Don't put words into my mouth. I asked to make clear comparisons. You continue not to do so.
- Eleutheria 13y agoHey Brendan, I have a wish. I want to have an eleutheria@firefox.com account from where I can access the Firefox Cloud with email, docs, pics, chat, apps, games, etc. That's all I ask for.
- booop 13y agoCongrats to Eich! And, has everyone here gone insane? Personally I hold Eugenic racist homophobic neo-nazis to a higher regard than those who view forgiveness and moving on as something that should never be done.
- hashbanged 13y ago1) Who said anything is unforgivable? This is a straw-man and a false dichotomy. 2) People usually expect some kind of apology and atonement before forgiveness. Quick google search didn't find anything, got a link? 3) Way to call people calmly being upset about someone donating to prop 8 on the internet basically worse than racist, homophobic, neo-nazis.
- potch 13y agoI work for Mozilla. I support Brendan as our CEO. I strongly, vehemently oppose his views on gay marriage. I personally won't tolerate any CEO-level chicanery on our internal and external policies of tolerance, though I do not expect any. I am not alone in this feeling amongst the staff. I think his leadership is good for the organization and its goals. This cognitive dissonance will likely make me even more diligent in ensuring Mozilla is an equitable place to work.
- yeukhon 13y agoI am actually quite surprised he took the position. I wonder if Jay is actually leaving Mozilla since Li Gong is now the COO. That being said, I think Brendan is now put on a major test. If instead Brendan doesn't believe in abortion, would we still have this conversation? The split among pro-live and pro-choice is just as bad as pro-gay and non-gay. And among pro-choice there is a split on what constitutes a good reason to abort and what is not. A good CEO should ensure the company is sustainable and well. One way is to accept and respect differences. If Mozilla employees think gay workers should receive X benefit that non-gay workers already been receiving and they petition Mozilla and Brendan to take action, Brendan and his team will have to work toward that goal. That's their job (well mostly COO I guess). Otherwise employees will lose faith in the organization and talent will be lost. If he truly values Mozilla and his hard work at Mozilla, he will not hesitate to make Mozilla more friendly and more open and transparent. But he doesn't have to change his belief to be a CEO. He, in his personal space, at his house, he can do whatever he wants and say whatever he wants. I don't work for Mozilla and I don't ask around to find out who is gay and who is not. I don't know whether gay workers feel welcome at Mozilla or not. Just saying.
- zobzu 13y agoYeah, I dont think his positions on non-technical matters really matter that much in this case. It doesn't mean hes going a good or bad CEO because of his beliefs in a totally different subject. As long as one doesn't affect the other, everyone is entitled to his opinion. That's why we vote on stuff...
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- m0llusk 13y agoMozilla products like Firefox and FirefoxOS are highly relevant. California Proposition 8 was dumped and as such has limited relevance.
- atotic 13y agoI've read this comment thread a few days ago, and was disappointed that the discussion has focused on Brendan's contribution to prop 8. Just want to get this off my chest: I've known Brendan, I've code-reviewed some super scary changes he was checking in. I've watched him do cartwheels. He is a very smart guy, one of the few I've met who is clearly superior to me (Hi Guha!). He is also part of a tribe foreign to me, deeply religious computer geeks. I believe (have no 1st hand knowledge), that Brendan contributed to prop 8 as part of a church drive. His contribution has offended many, but it not part of his core beliefs. I also believe that he gets Internet's potential more than just about anyone. My passion is open Web, and Brendan leading Mozilla is great news. He knows what really matters, he is passionate, and he will fight for it.
- SimHacker 13y agoThere remains an huge elephant in the room, Brendan, which causes your message of inclusivity to fall flat. "I'm sorry." "I was wrong." These are the words abusers never say; you want our forgiveness without actually promising to stop harming people, or explaining what was going through your head when you DID harm people before. You're not sorry. You refuse to mention you were wrong, and apologize for the tangible harm you caused. You skirt around the well known fact that you donated money to destroy the existing and potential marriages of gay families. Everyone knows that. It's on the record. Your verbal gymnastics to avoid addressing that fact overshadowed your message. Why didn't you mention that YOU PERSONALLY are the cause of people mistrusting Mozilla's commitment to equality, and explain WHAT you did and WHY you did it, as you have always refused to do. If you learned anything, and changed your bigoted beliefs, then you should ADMIT to making a mistake, EXPLAIN why you made it, and APOLOGIZE for the harm you caused. But no, you're still an abuser, because: You refuse to admit you were wrong. You refuse to explain what the fuck you were thinking when you donated money to support Proposition 8. You refuse to explain why you intended and succeeded in destroying the existing and potential marriages of gay families. You refuse to explain what you learned from being wrong, so other bigots like yourself can learn from your mistakes, and hopefully change their ways. Brendan: You are a bigot, and an abuser. Not just because of your beliefs, which you have kept to yourself because they are so unjustifiable that you are ashamed to discuss them, but because of your ACTIONS, which tangibly contributed to the success of Proposition 8, thus destroying the existing gay marriages in California and preventing others. That was your intent, and that was the result of your actions, so you deserve credit for destroying those marriages, and you should be ashamed of yourself. The Supreme Court finally ruled that Proposition 8 was wrong. Can you finally admit that YOU were wrong? But I am sure you won't, because as a religious bigot, you think you're better than everyone else, and that you have a right to tell other people how to live their lives. You've so much as proven that with your latest cowardly statement, a non-apology apology, which dances around the fact that you did what you did, that brought shame to the company that you direct, and blatantly avoids saying you're sorry and that you're wrong. This is how your non-apology apology sounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ocv5WdBmSok https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ocv5WdBmSok