3 ms·

There are currently two posts on the main page about this. Do we really need a third? Is this really the kind of place where we are going to push a story about

by yaur 13y ago

There are currently two posts on the main page about this. Do we really need a third? Is this really the kind of place where we are going to push a story about Postgres and the Linux kernel off the main page so that we can have another nasty political fight? I guess I'm new here and don't know the community that well, but that seems more than a little sad and absurd. It is a shame though cause this is kind of a decent write-up.

tiles 13y ago
I think it's fitting. The Chief Technology Officer for many years at Mozilla, once promoted to CEO, suffers great pushback and voluntarily steps down as a result. For Mozilla, technology in this case was not more important than community values. Postgres and Linux have technological improvements, but I'm eager to see the tech industry be far more self-aware in trying to progress in its social issues, rather than just progress with features. Plus, this was a struggle and many on these forums were affected. The underlying causes won't go away after one day, and more worryingly, perhaps not for years to come.
- judk 13y ago
  Indeed, in the no-privacy Facebook era, we all look forward to fully vetting the personal lives of our business leaders and employees. With this inspiring precedent, we can have confidence that the next CEO of Mozilla --and every other company, we hope-- will be well vetted to hold the correct behaviors -- the only, obviously morally correct behaviors-- toward the great challenges of our time: women's abortion rights (or is it fetuses' birth rights?), animal abuse rights (factory farm supporters are unfit to lead), gentrification (wealthy SF residents displace evicted tenants, ruining their lives, so they are not leadership material), ...
  - interstitial 13y ago
    Needs more satire, I almost believed you.
  - x0x0 13y ago
    Certain communities are more sensitive to certain insults. SF, in particular, is home to many gay people; many of them came to this area of the country in particular to escape persecution. Even now coming out to your parents can be quite hard, but you don't have to travel back more than a few years to regularly hear stories of children summarily kicked out of the house, parents never speaking to children again, etc. This is a community that also welcomes, and to a certain extent prizes, nonconformists; or others that have had really shit experiences in grade school, high school, or the cities they grew up in All of which says that the community of which mozilla is a part is particularly sensitive to slights against gay people. This should have been, oh, completely unsurprising. And the ceo is often symbolic in a way that a cto isn't. And in particular, I wouldn't work for firefox while he was ceo. He made a donation specifically intended to maliciously hurt my friends and neighbors. I can't support that.
    - tomcorrigan 13y ago
      > He made a donation specifically intended to maliciously hurt my friends and neighbors. Where the fuck did you get that idea? You just made that up. You don't know his specific purpose, you may think you can infer it but you certainly don't know it. Furthermore, there is not a scintilla of evidence to suggest he acted out of malice. It is far more plausible that he considered gay marriage inconsistent with his religious beliefs and that he also felt compelled by his religion to defend his view of what marriage should be.
      - x0x0 13y ago
        1 - by their fruits ye shall know them 2 - because i'm not deliberately obtuse or stupid
  - hkphooey 13y ago
    They have to be vegan too. Protect the animals!
beering 13y ago
I think it's worth the attention because Mozilla is a huge part of our life as hackers, and their mismanagement of the controversy could be a big case study for the rest of us. Would things have changed if he made a big direct apology instead of mumbling something about "causing pain" buried in some blog post? Could Mozilla have done X or tried Y instead? I think we're going to be dissecting this for a while.
tptacek 13y ago
I feel exactly the same way you do, about the prominence this issue has on the front page, the quality of the discussions it's produced, and this particular writeup. I flagged the story; it's not about technology, but, as 'dang would say, about politics using technology as its host organism.

by yaur 13y ago

tiles 13y ago

I think it's fitting. The Chief Technology Officer for many years at Mozilla, once promoted to CEO, suffers great pushback and voluntarily steps down as a result. For Mozilla, technology in this case was not more important than community values. Postgres and Linux have technological improvements, but I'm eager to see the tech industry be far more self-aware in trying to progress in its social issues, rather than just progress with features. Plus, this was a struggle and many on these forums were affected. The underlying causes won't go away after one day, and more worryingly, perhaps not for years to come.

judk 13y ago
Indeed, in the no-privacy Facebook era, we all look forward to fully vetting the personal lives of our business leaders and employees. With this inspiring precedent, we can have confidence that the next CEO of Mozilla --and every other company, we hope-- will be well vetted to hold the correct behaviors -- the only, obviously morally correct behaviors-- toward the great challenges of our time: women's abortion rights (or is it fetuses' birth rights?), animal abuse rights (factory farm supporters are unfit to lead), gentrification (wealthy SF residents displace evicted tenants, ruining their lives, so they are not leadership material), ...
- interstitial 13y ago
  Needs more satire, I almost believed you.
- x0x0 13y ago
  Certain communities are more sensitive to certain insults. SF, in particular, is home to many gay people; many of them came to this area of the country in particular to escape persecution. Even now coming out to your parents can be quite hard, but you don't have to travel back more than a few years to regularly hear stories of children summarily kicked out of the house, parents never speaking to children again, etc. This is a community that also welcomes, and to a certain extent prizes, nonconformists; or others that have had really shit experiences in grade school, high school, or the cities they grew up in All of which says that the community of which mozilla is a part is particularly sensitive to slights against gay people. This should have been, oh, completely unsurprising. And the ceo is often symbolic in a way that a cto isn't. And in particular, I wouldn't work for firefox while he was ceo. He made a donation specifically intended to maliciously hurt my friends and neighbors. I can't support that.
  - tomcorrigan 13y ago
    > He made a donation specifically intended to maliciously hurt my friends and neighbors. Where the fuck did you get that idea? You just made that up. You don't know his specific purpose, you may think you can infer it but you certainly don't know it. Furthermore, there is not a scintilla of evidence to suggest he acted out of malice. It is far more plausible that he considered gay marriage inconsistent with his religious beliefs and that he also felt compelled by his religion to defend his view of what marriage should be.
    - x0x0 13y ago
      1 - by their fruits ye shall know them 2 - because i'm not deliberately obtuse or stupid
- hkphooey 13y ago
  They have to be vegan too. Protect the animals!

beering 13y ago

I think it's worth the attention because Mozilla is a huge part of our life as hackers, and their mismanagement of the controversy could be a big case study for the rest of us. Would things have changed if he made a big direct apology instead of mumbling something about "causing pain" buried in some blog post? Could Mozilla have done X or tried Y instead? I think we're going to be dissecting this for a while.

tptacek 13y ago

I feel exactly the same way you do, about the prominence this issue has on the front page, the quality of the discussions it's produced, and this particular writeup. I flagged the story; it's not about technology, but, as 'dang would say, about politics using technology as its host organism.