11 ms·

I agree that people shouldn't be protected from the consequences of what they say or do, and I don't agree with Eich's point of view. However, I feel like the

by sspiff 13y ago

I agree that people shouldn't be protected from the consequences of what they say or do, and I don't agree with Eich's point of view. However, I feel like the reaction to his becoming CEO and trying to get him to step down were unjustified. I believe that someone shouldn't be judged on his political or religious affiliation when being considered for a new job or a new role. I have political convictions which are perpendicular to some of my colleagues ideas, and guess what, we get along just fine at work. I fail to see how his opinion on same-sex marriage (or his sponsorship of conservative politicians in general) would be a problem for guiding Mozilla forward. As long as he doesn't use Mozilla as a tool for his personal agenda.

oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
Some opinions are very difficult to separate from behaviour. When you hold the view that someone is less entitled because of their sexual orientation, it is probably difficult to prevent that from affecting your relationships with some members of your workforce, however well-intentioned you may be, however hard you might strive. What about if Eich had donated money to an organisation trying to stop black people getting married? Would you still think him entitled to be the CEO of a commercial organisation, without dissent?
- sspiff 13y ago
  I feel like your comparison of sexual orientation to ethnicity is a bit of a stretch. Marriage is something a lot of people have strong and (from my point of view) old-fashioned opinions on. The fact that he feel marriage is a bond between two members of a different gender does not necessarily mean he's going to actively discriminate members of the LGBT community in a professional environment. It's of course possible that he might, but several things make me feel like he should have been given a chance to prove himself: * He made a public statement clarifying his personal beliefs would not affect his work at Mozilla. * He is being accused of discriminating at Mozilla, while as far as we know, no such thing has happened (yet). * Given the amount of backlash he has suffered because of his 6 year old contribution to some campaign, I'm sure he's smart enough to handle matters in which he might be strongly biased by delegating them to someone else. I was outraged when his contribution came to light a few years ago, but I honestly feel like he's getting too harsh a treatment for what he did.
  - oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
    "I feel like your comparison of sexual orientation to ethnicity is a bit of a stretch." Why?
    - coldtea 13y ago
      Because, as he wrote just after that: "Marriage is something a lot of people have strong and (from my point of view) old-fashioned opinions on. The fact that he feel marriage is a bond between two members of a different gender does not necessarily mean he's going to actively discriminate members of the LGBT community in a professional environment."
      - Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
        People had (and have) a lot of strong and often (from my point of view) old fashioned views on ethnicity. If I said that I don't think a black employee should be allowed to have the same voting rights as me (something which was historically the case and was felt to be reasonable by - for a long time - the majority), how much faith would you have in my not activity discriminating against them in a professional environment?
        coldtea 13y ago
        Less than I would have if you had spoken about marriage rights. The difference being that to deny a group voting rights, it means you have something against that group specifically. Whereas for marriage, it could just be that your notion of marriage as a custom (how you think marriage should be) is incompatible with the group performing it.
        Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
        OK, let's make it direct then. If you found a minister of a non-specific religion who refused to marry to black two people just because he just didn't see marriage in his faith as something that happened between black people, how much faith would you have that he had nothing against black people, that it was just about he saw marriage?
- ralfd 13y ago
  On the flip side, I would expect a vegan who donates money to organizations trying to stop state subsidies to meat production still be working fine with carnivores.
  - oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
    Definitely some very significant differences here; I'll just mention the most significant of all: people choose to be vegan.
    - the_af 13y ago
      Also, few people in Western countries got persecuted, ridiculed, bashed or killed because they were godless carnivores. In recent history.
    - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
      People don't choose to have homosexual sexual relationships, or choose to redefine marriage to embrace non-hetero pairings?
rmc 13y ago
Because Mozilla relies on donations of time and labour and open source contributions. If you can't get people to contribute, Mozilla is in trouble.
- theoden 13y ago
  So if people stopped contributing because of a pro-gay marriage CEO, then that CEO should also be fired?
- unreal37 13y ago
  Actually, they make most of their money from referral traffic. "The majority of Mozilla’s revenue is generated from search and commerce functionality included in our Firefox product through all major search partners including Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Amazon, eBay and others." https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2012/faq/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2012/f... If people stop contributing, Mozilla is financially fine. If they stop using the browser, Mozilla is in trouble. [Edited for clarity]
  - rmc 13y ago
    Notice I said "donations of time and labour". Not financial donations. Is most of mozilla's programming, bug tracking, promotions, evangelizaing, tech support, done by people who are salaries employees of Mozilla Corp? Or the wider "open source community"
  - natch 13y ago
    If those partnerships were suspended, Mozilla would be in trouble. But that's not going to happen... moot now that Eich is out.
CaptainZapp 13y ago
Andrew Sullivan (who can hardly be accused of being a gay basher) put it quite succinctly and very eloquent: http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/04/03/the-hounding-of-brendan-eich/ http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/04/03/the-hounding-of-br... I have to agree.
- Pacabel 13y ago
  It's pretty well established at this point that those who scream the loudest about how important "tolerance" is often prove to be among the most intolerant in practice. The same is holding true for those who are against "discrimination". They'll often have absolutely no qualms about using one form of discrimination in their quest to bring retribution to somebody else who may have engaged in something they consider to be discriminatory behavior.
  - vdaniuk 13y ago
    Could you please provide facts and citations that support your claim that "those who scream the loudest... are the most intolerant in practice"?
    - Pacabel 13y ago
      Well, this whole incident involving Eich is a pretty good example.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - coldpie 13y ago
    If the only thing that is not tolerated is intolerance, intolerance will cease to exist.
    - Pacabel 13y ago
      How exactly do you figure that? The act of not tolerating intolerance is itself intolerance. It will always be around, if we take your approach. The only way to full tolerance is to be tolerant of intolerance.
cyphunk 13y ago
The story is different when it comes to open source. OSS projects are communal in nature and much more democratic than their non-OSS counterparts. It should be no surprising to see the dynamics of state politics, such as examination of unrelated actions from actors, apply to OSS communities. On that note, you can only be the dictator and force everyone to look at the bits alone, when you have something people need or you have endless patience to outlast your competition. This would be the Linus strategy. I dont think Mozilla has this option. ALSO, both consumers and employees in non-OSS establishments are making on CSR and meta-politics an priority. This will continue to increase in significance.
steven2012 13y ago
Wrong. As far as I know, he has not divulged his religious or political views. We do not know if he is Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, atheist or pastafarian. We do not know if he is a Democrat or a Republican. We do know, however, that he was so incensed by the ideas of gays getting the right to marriage that he donated a very large sum of money to help fight the legal battle against it. That speaks volumes about his personal bigotry. He was not being attacked for his religious or political views. He was attacked because he wants to discriminate against an entire class of people.
- davidgerard 13y ago
  He's donated extensively to his local Tea Party candidate and to Pat Buchanan, so we do have data on the political question.
  - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
    ... and in USA there should be no free right to political association? Are you going to have a vote on this or is democracy a no-no in USA now too?
    - davidgerard 13y ago
      I was answering the question.
  - dkuntz2 13y ago
    Arguably. He could just put more weight in one category than every other category combined, and Buchanan might match that category better than any other candidates. Unless Eich actually makes a statement on his political views, we don't really know anything.
- adventured 13y ago
  How much money did he donate? Barack Obama was so incensed at the idea of gays getting the right to marriage, that he 'stood' on a national stage, while running for the highest office in the land, and declared that marriage is between a man and a woman - an open declaration of bigotry. Not all bigotry is treated equally apparently.
Tloewald 13y ago
In your own example, you (a) aren't head of the organization and (b) are not, I assume, advocating a view that some of your colleagues should be second class citizens.

by sspiff 13y ago

oneeyedpigeon 13y ago

Some opinions are very difficult to separate from behaviour. When you hold the view that someone is less entitled because of their sexual orientation, it is probably difficult to prevent that from affecting your relationships with some members of your workforce, however well-intentioned you may be, however hard you might strive. What about if Eich had donated money to an organisation trying to stop black people getting married? Would you still think him entitled to be the CEO of a commercial organisation, without dissent?

sspiff 13y ago
I feel like your comparison of sexual orientation to ethnicity is a bit of a stretch. Marriage is something a lot of people have strong and (from my point of view) old-fashioned opinions on. The fact that he feel marriage is a bond between two members of a different gender does not necessarily mean he's going to actively discriminate members of the LGBT community in a professional environment. It's of course possible that he might, but several things make me feel like he should have been given a chance to prove himself: * He made a public statement clarifying his personal beliefs would not affect his work at Mozilla. * He is being accused of discriminating at Mozilla, while as far as we know, no such thing has happened (yet). * Given the amount of backlash he has suffered because of his 6 year old contribution to some campaign, I'm sure he's smart enough to handle matters in which he might be strongly biased by delegating them to someone else. I was outraged when his contribution came to light a few years ago, but I honestly feel like he's getting too harsh a treatment for what he did.
- oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
  "I feel like your comparison of sexual orientation to ethnicity is a bit of a stretch." Why?
  - coldtea 13y ago
    Because, as he wrote just after that: "Marriage is something a lot of people have strong and (from my point of view) old-fashioned opinions on. The fact that he feel marriage is a bond between two members of a different gender does not necessarily mean he's going to actively discriminate members of the LGBT community in a professional environment."
    - Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
      People had (and have) a lot of strong and often (from my point of view) old fashioned views on ethnicity. If I said that I don't think a black employee should be allowed to have the same voting rights as me (something which was historically the case and was felt to be reasonable by - for a long time - the majority), how much faith would you have in my not activity discriminating against them in a professional environment?
      - coldtea 13y ago
        Less than I would have if you had spoken about marriage rights. The difference being that to deny a group voting rights, it means you have something against that group specifically. Whereas for marriage, it could just be that your notion of marriage as a custom (how you think marriage should be) is incompatible with the group performing it.
        Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
        OK, let's make it direct then. If you found a minister of a non-specific religion who refused to marry to black two people just because he just didn't see marriage in his faith as something that happened between black people, how much faith would you have that he had nothing against black people, that it was just about he saw marriage?
ralfd 13y ago
On the flip side, I would expect a vegan who donates money to organizations trying to stop state subsidies to meat production still be working fine with carnivores.
- oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
  Definitely some very significant differences here; I'll just mention the most significant of all: people choose to be vegan.
  - the_af 13y ago
    Also, few people in Western countries got persecuted, ridiculed, bashed or killed because they were godless carnivores. In recent history.
  - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
    People don't choose to have homosexual sexual relationships, or choose to redefine marriage to embrace non-hetero pairings?

rmc 13y ago

Because Mozilla relies on donations of time and labour and open source contributions. If you can't get people to contribute, Mozilla is in trouble.

theoden 13y ago
So if people stopped contributing because of a pro-gay marriage CEO, then that CEO should also be fired?
unreal37 13y ago
Actually, they make most of their money from referral traffic. "The majority of Mozilla’s revenue is generated from search and commerce functionality included in our Firefox product through all major search partners including Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Amazon, eBay and others." https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2012/faq/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2012/f... If people stop contributing, Mozilla is financially fine. If they stop using the browser, Mozilla is in trouble. [Edited for clarity]
- rmc 13y ago
  Notice I said "donations of time and labour". Not financial donations. Is most of mozilla's programming, bug tracking, promotions, evangelizaing, tech support, done by people who are salaries employees of Mozilla Corp? Or the wider "open source community"
- natch 13y ago
  If those partnerships were suspended, Mozilla would be in trouble. But that's not going to happen... moot now that Eich is out.

CaptainZapp 13y ago

Andrew Sullivan (who can hardly be accused of being a gay basher) put it quite succinctly and very eloquent: http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/04/03/the-hounding-of-brendan-eich/ http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/04/03/the-hounding-of-br... I have to agree.

Pacabel 13y ago
It's pretty well established at this point that those who scream the loudest about how important "tolerance" is often prove to be among the most intolerant in practice. The same is holding true for those who are against "discrimination". They'll often have absolutely no qualms about using one form of discrimination in their quest to bring retribution to somebody else who may have engaged in something they consider to be discriminatory behavior.
- vdaniuk 13y ago
  Could you please provide facts and citations that support your claim that "those who scream the loudest... are the most intolerant in practice"?
  - Pacabel 13y ago
    Well, this whole incident involving Eich is a pretty good example.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- coldpie 13y ago
  If the only thing that is not tolerated is intolerance, intolerance will cease to exist.
  - Pacabel 13y ago
    How exactly do you figure that? The act of not tolerating intolerance is itself intolerance. It will always be around, if we take your approach. The only way to full tolerance is to be tolerant of intolerance.

cyphunk 13y ago

The story is different when it comes to open source. OSS projects are communal in nature and much more democratic than their non-OSS counterparts. It should be no surprising to see the dynamics of state politics, such as examination of unrelated actions from actors, apply to OSS communities. On that note, you can only be the dictator and force everyone to look at the bits alone, when you have something people need or you have endless patience to outlast your competition. This would be the Linus strategy. I dont think Mozilla has this option. ALSO, both consumers and employees in non-OSS establishments are making on CSR and meta-politics an priority. This will continue to increase in significance.

steven2012 13y ago

Wrong. As far as I know, he has not divulged his religious or political views. We do not know if he is Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, atheist or pastafarian. We do not know if he is a Democrat or a Republican. We do know, however, that he was so incensed by the ideas of gays getting the right to marriage that he donated a very large sum of money to help fight the legal battle against it. That speaks volumes about his personal bigotry. He was not being attacked for his religious or political views. He was attacked because he wants to discriminate against an entire class of people.

davidgerard 13y ago
He's donated extensively to his local Tea Party candidate and to Pat Buchanan, so we do have data on the political question.
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  ... and in USA there should be no free right to political association? Are you going to have a vote on this or is democracy a no-no in USA now too?
  - davidgerard 13y ago
    I was answering the question.
- dkuntz2 13y ago
  Arguably. He could just put more weight in one category than every other category combined, and Buchanan might match that category better than any other candidates. Unless Eich actually makes a statement on his political views, we don't really know anything.
adventured 13y ago
How much money did he donate? Barack Obama was so incensed at the idea of gays getting the right to marriage, that he 'stood' on a national stage, while running for the highest office in the land, and declared that marriage is between a man and a woman - an open declaration of bigotry. Not all bigotry is treated equally apparently.

Tloewald 13y ago

In your own example, you (a) aren't head of the organization and (b) are not, I assume, advocating a view that some of your colleagues should be second class citizens.