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> Hypothetically, if the CEO of another tech company was revealed to have political interests in slavery, would we feel the need to tip-toe so carefully? Well,

by tragic 13y ago

> Hypothetically, if the CEO of another tech company was revealed to have political interests in slavery, would we feel the need to tip-toe so carefully? Well, knowing what we know about working conditions at FoxConn and so forth, I don't see huge amounts of developers boycotting iOS. Which, if anything, is a far more serious issue than this. I mean, does anybody seriously expect - under the Eich regime - Mozilla itself to start advocating against gay marriage? Are new versions of Firefox going to block gay-interest websites? The notion is patently ludicrous - to my knowledge, Eich has never even vocalised his opposition to gay marriage. That $1,000 donation was unknown for four years. Since then, we have had these rather gnomic, evasive statements (which, I agree, means he still holds those opinions). And $1,000 is a bit stingy - a brief glance at the relevant records[0] reveals several six-figure donations. I'm a card-carrying leftie pinko, I believe that people should be able to shag/date/marry whomever they wish regardless of their genital plumbing, and I despise things like Prop 8. If Brendan Eich still holds these opinions, I'm happy to call him a bigot. But let's get a grip. Prop 8 didn't pass because some hacker donated a grand to the campaign. It passed because a lot of people share those opinions, and because there are - unfortunately - far more vocal and better organised advocates for them. Until someone can demonstrate that Eich will have a demonstrably more pernicious effect on the struggle for gay equality now that he has a more prominent c-level job title at Mozilla than last month, I'm going to call this a storm in a teacup - a distraction from the fight for LGBT equality in fact, a symptom of the social media world's tendency to reduce politics to hounding celebrities for one reason or another. [0] http://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx?id=1303282&view=received&psort=AMOUNT&session=2007 http://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx...

sjwright 13y ago
> Well, knowing what we know about working conditions at FoxConn and so forth, I don't see huge amounts of developers boycotting iOS. As if every other phone on the market are made by affluent white English-speaking college graduates. Oh, and remember that FoxConn make other things too -- for example, the PS3, PS4, 360, XBone, Wii and WiiU. We'll have to boycott those platforms too.
- kybernetikos 13y ago
  Since you're not arguing against it, you seem to be accepting the FoxConn/slavery link and then saying we shouldn't boycott because it'd be too difficult. That would be quite an unusual thing to say - that even heinous companies shouldn't be boycotted if the inconvenience is large - so I must have misunderstood.
zimpenfish 13y ago
Re: Foxconn and boycotting iOS I would certainly consider it if Apple -weren't- making huge efforts in that direction with their Supplier Responsibility program (which no other tech company that uses Foxconn appears to even have, much less be devoting resources to.)

by tragic 13y ago

sjwright 13y ago

> Well, knowing what we know about working conditions at FoxConn and so forth, I don't see huge amounts of developers boycotting iOS. As if every other phone on the market are made by affluent white English-speaking college graduates. Oh, and remember that FoxConn make other things too -- for example, the PS3, PS4, 360, XBone, Wii and WiiU. We'll have to boycott those platforms too.

kybernetikos 13y ago
Since you're not arguing against it, you seem to be accepting the FoxConn/slavery link and then saying we shouldn't boycott because it'd be too difficult. That would be quite an unusual thing to say - that even heinous companies shouldn't be boycotted if the inconvenience is large - so I must have misunderstood.

zimpenfish 13y ago

Re: Foxconn and boycotting iOS I would certainly consider it if Apple -weren't- making huge efforts in that direction with their Supplier Responsibility program (which no other tech company that uses Foxconn appears to even have, much less be devoting resources to.)