6 ms·

Brendan Eich and Mozilla

28 points by alecdbrooks 13y ago

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- parfe 13y ago
  >The point is that Eich was lynched for his political or religious beliefs. Eich caused an uproar due to his actions, not his beliefs. Pretending he sat on the side lines silently nodding in agreement with Prop 8 ignores the reality. He gave money to further a cause with the goal of dissolving families of same sex couples in California. He affected peoples' lives.
  - gcp 13y ago
    Contributing to a political campaign is promoting your beliefs.
  - momentarily 13y ago
    Donating to a cause is free speech.
  - akitaro 13y ago
    Of course he affected peoples lives, he created javascript. Prop 8 failed though, so in the end he did jack shit against gay rights.
    - mkr-hn 13y ago
      Prop 8 succeeded. The court overturned it years later.
      - akitaro 13y ago
        Which means it did jack shit. Also, it was found unconstitutional in 2010. Only "years later" by the fact that it was more than a single year. Hardly a significant stretch of time.
    - devindotcom 13y ago
      Like the guys who literally lynched black people for acting white for much of the 20th century did jack shit against equal rights for black people?
      - akitaro 13y ago
        That is such a bad comparison that you should literally feel bad for making it :3
badman_ting 13y ago
Finally, some sanity on this issue. Thank you, thank you. > "I mean, isn’t this supposed to be how things work?" > "But, but… Mr. Eich should be free to believe what he wants, and to contribute to any political cause he so chooses! Well, and so he is, and I would, as they say, defend to the death his right to do so. What he is not free from — and this is the thing which people seem to fall down on again and again — are the consequences of his actions."
- gcp 13y ago
  I don't get this viewpoint. You can say whatever you want, as long as you don't want a bullet in your head. Does anyone recognize that as freedom of speech? I doubt so. Clearly we recognize freedom of speech as the ability to speak out with some limit on the repercussions of that. I'm not clear what they should be, but there certainly are some.
  - devindotcom 13y ago
    "Freedom of speech" is a guarantee that the government will not curtail your ability to say what you want on whatever topic, with some specific limitations. You can say whatever you want. If I say "you know what, I don't think black and white kids should go to the same school," I assume the liability for that statement. I may think it's reasonable, and other may as well, but the fact is in this day and age that statement and sentiment will do me all kinds of damage. Especially if I'm a public figure. Are we actively working against people who believe differently from us? Yes, that is called activism. As long as it is nonviolent resistance, civil disobedience, or simply speaking out, we are within our rights and fighting for what we think is important: equal civil rights for all people. Will that get people fired? Hell yes. You think superintendents who were in favor of segregated schools didn't lose their jobs? You think diners that wouldn't serve black people didn't go out of business? Activism aims at producing consequences, whether it's changed laws, greater visibility, or the removal of people who support the opposite cause. In the case of civil rights the stakes are high enough and the groups large enough that major consequences are possible. Eich was one of them. Here's to a hundred more!
  - badman_ting 13y ago
MrZongle2 13y ago
I thought Scalzi's take on the issue was one of the more objective that I've seen lately. He's correct, of course: as a private organization, Mozilla reserves the right to hire and fire (which would have been Eich's fate had he not resigned) as they see fit as long as such action does not run afoul of state or federal labor laws....which this does not. Mozilla was concerned about their appearance in the public eye, and chose to align themselves with one particular side of the issue. Again, as is their right. Eich was not denied any First Amendment right, as the U.S. Government was not involved. But let's not kid ourselves: those vigorously cheering Eich's departure aren't considering the whole picture. If this were 1950, Mozilla would be chock-full of white men eager to hustle the CEO out the door were it disclosed that he was gay or had donated to a Socialist/Communist organization. "Tolerance" had nothing to do with what happened to Eich. This was the Jacobin mob in action.
- devindotcom 13y ago
  Opposing equal civil rights for gay people isn't really equatable in any ways to Communism. It's far more accurate to compare it to the 60s, when people demonstrated against Jim Crow laws, segregation, and anti-miscegenation laws.
  - MrZongle2 13y ago
    If you think my point is that gay rights is like Communism, you've either missed my point or are trying to derail the conversation. I specifically chose support of a communist group (or being gay) in the 50s. Being sympathetic to or being a member of an unpopular group in this case isn't as easy as observing somebody's skin color. It's not about separate water fountains, schools and bus seats, which are all physical manifestations of bigotry. By distancing themselves from Eich, Mozilla demonstrated that they were more interested in siding with what was popular rather than affirming any interest in real diversity: diversity of thought. Because isn't that what the diversity movement is supposed to be all about?
    - devindotcom 13y ago
      No, I meant that the situations, origins, meanings, and style of opposition are very different. And if you don't think that there are physical manifestations of bigotry against gay people, I don't know what to tell you. Furthermore, gay people have had to actively hide the physical manifestations of their sexuality in order to avoid such bigotry for centuries. This isn't the "diversity movement." It is a protest in support of equal civil rights for a historically and currently oppressed minority.
saraid216 13y ago
I haven't been following this much, but it's sort of amusing and annoying when someone mirrors my thoughts on a subject so well. The really bad thing that happened in this entire drama was that the list of donors was released to the public. That shouldn't have happened. Some quick googling, on the other hand, yielded this: http://www.gayfresno.com/content/view/669/ http://www.gayfresno.com/content/view/669/ To which I can ultimately only say, "Sigh."
- devindotcom 13y ago
  Personally I disagree - I think donations to political causes and organizations should be considered public speech. Participation in a democracy takes 'a certain amount of civic courage.'
  - gcp 13y ago
    This makes it impossible for a minority movement to slowly gain traction. Why do you think secrecy in voting is widely considered to be necessary for true democracy?
    - devindotcom 13y ago
      It's not impossible, and while some forms of secrecy are necessary, I don't think they are "widely considered to be necessary," even if "true democracy" was a well-settled concept that happened to agree with your understanding of it. We just don't see eye to eye on this and likely won't ever.
      - saraid216 13y ago
        You're basically not saying anything except, "I disagree." Voting is the same type of public, political speech that donations are. Indeed, in a world where money is indisputably an overwhelmingly dominant medium through which votes are gained (that is effectively the point of donations), they are practically synonymous.
  - saraid216 13y ago
MisterWebz 13y ago
So I guess we should boycott every CEO that we don't agree with?
- saraid216 13y ago
  That actually happens more than you think. The difference is that it usually doesn't work.
- devindotcom 13y ago
  Yes! This is part of what is called activism!
htk 13y ago
I'm not religious but I do agree with the logic behind this comment: "So we Catholics can start lobbying to remove all CEOs who advocate pro-Homosexual behavior or in anyway supported attacks on traditional marriage and religious freedom, following the same reason as Mr. Scalzi?"
- nobodysfool 13y ago
  Are they not doing that already?
muyuu 13y ago
There is a lot more to this issue than that. The reactions outside and inside of the company showed very little tolerance, and between dialogue/engagement and intimidation/suppression, the latter was chosen. This in itself is a massive problem. I read a lot of nonsense lately about this being "the free market", "he can defend whatever he wants but then face the consequences", etc. Do these people realise that the exact same arguments were used for the suppression of gays? how are these valid now? is this the kind of discourse people support in the Valley? But even worse than that is the argument that nothing illegal was done. Yep, the same as stripping Alan Turing of his awards was legal at the time, or put him under "treatment", or marginalising and ostracising him. Quit focusing in the legalese and look at the lack of compassion as human beings people have for those who dissent in a way that offends them.
- rebelidealist 13y ago
  I wish he had stuck thru the storm. I support gay marriage, but no one should be made to apologize for a belief that half of the country (including Obama) agreed with at the time. He was a consummate professional that did not slander anyone else based on their belief. Now we are slandering him thru a social media shit storm. OkCupid should be ashamed for themselves for their cheap move leveraging their large user base. Brandan Eich = "deny love and instead enforce misery, shame, and frustration are our enemies" Really, he is your enemy? He make your site work with JS and Firefox. Without both, internet browsing will suck today. Please OkCupid, show him some respect and a benefit of doubt. Mozilla failed to back the cofounder that worked tirelessly for them for 16 years. They never emphasized after 16 years in an executive role, his personal vote did not have any effect on his ability to lead a diverse team. Hope his next company will appreciate his contributions more.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    Eich's 2008 pro-Prop 8 view was not shared by Obama, who expressly spoke out in 2008 against both Prop 8 specifically, and attempts to write same-sex marriage bans into constitutions generally. Not sure why the “Eich was wronged” crowd raises this lie so often.
Camillo 13y ago
Mozilla was founded to protect open standards on the web against the threat posed by private actors. But, as people keep arguing, we should only be concerned about interference from the state. Since the state is not threatening Brendan Eich's freedom of speech, there is no issue there; and since the state is not threatening open web standards, Mozilla's existence is completely unnecessary. The obvious conclusion is that Mr. Eich saw that this was the case, and voluntarily chose to abandon the now-obsolete organization. Everything is as it should be.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
panarky 13y ago
I've been searching for an analogy to neutralize the political sentiment and to focus on the facts. Scalzi nailed it with the gun-rights comparison. If your community values the right to keep and bear arms, and if you make a private donation to support gun control, then maybe you shouldn't lead that community. This article helped me understand this unfortunate incident, thank you.
- asadotzler 13y ago
  "If your community values the right to keep and bear arms" and if your community is made up of people who have hundreds of different points of view on the right to keep and bear arms... for example, any community that extends beyond the borders of the United States where the conversation may have entirely different contexts? How many of you making claims about the Mozilla community are actually a part of that community? How many of you are part of an organization with critical resources coming from over 100 countries and languages, not to mention every major world religion and the non-religious? If you're not, then speculating on what the Mozilla Community values is just that, speculation. I see a lot of people on the Internet deciding for themselves what the Mozilla Community values. I see a lot of people leaping to conclusions based on a few tweets from a few Mozilla employees, while ignoring all the much more nuanced and longer-form blog posts from many far more experienced and long-term Mozilla employees and community members expressing very different views. (Are we really so lazy that tweets are more effective in establishing the acceptable "facts on the ground" even when there are more robust, compelling, and accurate information available in longer-form blog posts? That's a fucking shame, IMO.)
momentarily 13y ago
SJWs have taken to repeating the "consequences for your actions" mantra to justify all the atrocities they commit.

28 points by alecdbrooks 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

parfe 13y ago
>The point is that Eich was lynched for his political or religious beliefs. Eich caused an uproar due to his actions, not his beliefs. Pretending he sat on the side lines silently nodding in agreement with Prop 8 ignores the reality. He gave money to further a cause with the goal of dissolving families of same sex couples in California. He affected peoples' lives.
- gcp 13y ago
  Contributing to a political campaign is promoting your beliefs.
- momentarily 13y ago
  Donating to a cause is free speech.
- akitaro 13y ago
  Of course he affected peoples lives, he created javascript. Prop 8 failed though, so in the end he did jack shit against gay rights.
  - mkr-hn 13y ago
    Prop 8 succeeded. The court overturned it years later.
    - akitaro 13y ago
      Which means it did jack shit. Also, it was found unconstitutional in 2010. Only "years later" by the fact that it was more than a single year. Hardly a significant stretch of time.
  - devindotcom 13y ago
    Like the guys who literally lynched black people for acting white for much of the 20th century did jack shit against equal rights for black people?
    - akitaro 13y ago
      That is such a bad comparison that you should literally feel bad for making it :3

badman_ting 13y ago

Finally, some sanity on this issue. Thank you, thank you. > "I mean, isn’t this supposed to be how things work?" > "But, but… Mr. Eich should be free to believe what he wants, and to contribute to any political cause he so chooses! Well, and so he is, and I would, as they say, defend to the death his right to do so. What he is not free from — and this is the thing which people seem to fall down on again and again — are the consequences of his actions."

gcp 13y ago
I don't get this viewpoint. You can say whatever you want, as long as you don't want a bullet in your head. Does anyone recognize that as freedom of speech? I doubt so. Clearly we recognize freedom of speech as the ability to speak out with some limit on the repercussions of that. I'm not clear what they should be, but there certainly are some.
- devindotcom 13y ago
  "Freedom of speech" is a guarantee that the government will not curtail your ability to say what you want on whatever topic, with some specific limitations. You can say whatever you want. If I say "you know what, I don't think black and white kids should go to the same school," I assume the liability for that statement. I may think it's reasonable, and other may as well, but the fact is in this day and age that statement and sentiment will do me all kinds of damage. Especially if I'm a public figure. Are we actively working against people who believe differently from us? Yes, that is called activism. As long as it is nonviolent resistance, civil disobedience, or simply speaking out, we are within our rights and fighting for what we think is important: equal civil rights for all people. Will that get people fired? Hell yes. You think superintendents who were in favor of segregated schools didn't lose their jobs? You think diners that wouldn't serve black people didn't go out of business? Activism aims at producing consequences, whether it's changed laws, greater visibility, or the removal of people who support the opposite cause. In the case of civil rights the stakes are high enough and the groups large enough that major consequences are possible. Eich was one of them. Here's to a hundred more!
- badman_ting 13y ago

MrZongle2 13y ago

I thought Scalzi's take on the issue was one of the more objective that I've seen lately. He's correct, of course: as a private organization, Mozilla reserves the right to hire and fire (which would have been Eich's fate had he not resigned) as they see fit as long as such action does not run afoul of state or federal labor laws....which this does not. Mozilla was concerned about their appearance in the public eye, and chose to align themselves with one particular side of the issue. Again, as is their right. Eich was not denied any First Amendment right, as the U.S. Government was not involved. But let's not kid ourselves: those vigorously cheering Eich's departure aren't considering the whole picture. If this were 1950, Mozilla would be chock-full of white men eager to hustle the CEO out the door were it disclosed that he was gay or had donated to a Socialist/Communist organization. "Tolerance" had nothing to do with what happened to Eich. This was the Jacobin mob in action.

devindotcom 13y ago
Opposing equal civil rights for gay people isn't really equatable in any ways to Communism. It's far more accurate to compare it to the 60s, when people demonstrated against Jim Crow laws, segregation, and anti-miscegenation laws.
- MrZongle2 13y ago
  If you think my point is that gay rights is like Communism, you've either missed my point or are trying to derail the conversation. I specifically chose support of a communist group (or being gay) in the 50s. Being sympathetic to or being a member of an unpopular group in this case isn't as easy as observing somebody's skin color. It's not about separate water fountains, schools and bus seats, which are all physical manifestations of bigotry. By distancing themselves from Eich, Mozilla demonstrated that they were more interested in siding with what was popular rather than affirming any interest in real diversity: diversity of thought. Because isn't that what the diversity movement is supposed to be all about?
  - devindotcom 13y ago
    No, I meant that the situations, origins, meanings, and style of opposition are very different. And if you don't think that there are physical manifestations of bigotry against gay people, I don't know what to tell you. Furthermore, gay people have had to actively hide the physical manifestations of their sexuality in order to avoid such bigotry for centuries. This isn't the "diversity movement." It is a protest in support of equal civil rights for a historically and currently oppressed minority.

saraid216 13y ago

I haven't been following this much, but it's sort of amusing and annoying when someone mirrors my thoughts on a subject so well. The really bad thing that happened in this entire drama was that the list of donors was released to the public. That shouldn't have happened. Some quick googling, on the other hand, yielded this: http://www.gayfresno.com/content/view/669/ http://www.gayfresno.com/content/view/669/ To which I can ultimately only say, "Sigh."

devindotcom 13y ago
Personally I disagree - I think donations to political causes and organizations should be considered public speech. Participation in a democracy takes 'a certain amount of civic courage.'
- gcp 13y ago
  This makes it impossible for a minority movement to slowly gain traction. Why do you think secrecy in voting is widely considered to be necessary for true democracy?
  - devindotcom 13y ago
    It's not impossible, and while some forms of secrecy are necessary, I don't think they are "widely considered to be necessary," even if "true democracy" was a well-settled concept that happened to agree with your understanding of it. We just don't see eye to eye on this and likely won't ever.
    - saraid216 13y ago
      You're basically not saying anything except, "I disagree." Voting is the same type of public, political speech that donations are. Indeed, in a world where money is indisputably an overwhelmingly dominant medium through which votes are gained (that is effectively the point of donations), they are practically synonymous.
- saraid216 13y ago

MisterWebz 13y ago

So I guess we should boycott every CEO that we don't agree with?

saraid216 13y ago
That actually happens more than you think. The difference is that it usually doesn't work.
devindotcom 13y ago
Yes! This is part of what is called activism!

htk 13y ago

I'm not religious but I do agree with the logic behind this comment: "So we Catholics can start lobbying to remove all CEOs who advocate pro-Homosexual behavior or in anyway supported attacks on traditional marriage and religious freedom, following the same reason as Mr. Scalzi?"

nobodysfool 13y ago
Are they not doing that already?

muyuu 13y ago

There is a lot more to this issue than that. The reactions outside and inside of the company showed very little tolerance, and between dialogue/engagement and intimidation/suppression, the latter was chosen. This in itself is a massive problem. I read a lot of nonsense lately about this being "the free market", "he can defend whatever he wants but then face the consequences", etc. Do these people realise that the exact same arguments were used for the suppression of gays? how are these valid now? is this the kind of discourse people support in the Valley? But even worse than that is the argument that nothing illegal was done. Yep, the same as stripping Alan Turing of his awards was legal at the time, or put him under "treatment", or marginalising and ostracising him. Quit focusing in the legalese and look at the lack of compassion as human beings people have for those who dissent in a way that offends them.

rebelidealist 13y ago
I wish he had stuck thru the storm. I support gay marriage, but no one should be made to apologize for a belief that half of the country (including Obama) agreed with at the time. He was a consummate professional that did not slander anyone else based on their belief. Now we are slandering him thru a social media shit storm. OkCupid should be ashamed for themselves for their cheap move leveraging their large user base. Brandan Eich = "deny love and instead enforce misery, shame, and frustration are our enemies" Really, he is your enemy? He make your site work with JS and Firefox. Without both, internet browsing will suck today. Please OkCupid, show him some respect and a benefit of doubt. Mozilla failed to back the cofounder that worked tirelessly for them for 16 years. They never emphasized after 16 years in an executive role, his personal vote did not have any effect on his ability to lead a diverse team. Hope his next company will appreciate his contributions more.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  Eich's 2008 pro-Prop 8 view was not shared by Obama, who expressly spoke out in 2008 against both Prop 8 specifically, and attempts to write same-sex marriage bans into constitutions generally. Not sure why the “Eich was wronged” crowd raises this lie so often.

Camillo 13y ago

Mozilla was founded to protect open standards on the web against the threat posed by private actors. But, as people keep arguing, we should only be concerned about interference from the state. Since the state is not threatening Brendan Eich's freedom of speech, there is no issue there; and since the state is not threatening open web standards, Mozilla's existence is completely unnecessary. The obvious conclusion is that Mr. Eich saw that this was the case, and voluntarily chose to abandon the now-obsolete organization. Everything is as it should be.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

panarky 13y ago

I've been searching for an analogy to neutralize the political sentiment and to focus on the facts. Scalzi nailed it with the gun-rights comparison. If your community values the right to keep and bear arms, and if you make a private donation to support gun control, then maybe you shouldn't lead that community. This article helped me understand this unfortunate incident, thank you.

asadotzler 13y ago
"If your community values the right to keep and bear arms" and if your community is made up of people who have hundreds of different points of view on the right to keep and bear arms... for example, any community that extends beyond the borders of the United States where the conversation may have entirely different contexts? How many of you making claims about the Mozilla community are actually a part of that community? How many of you are part of an organization with critical resources coming from over 100 countries and languages, not to mention every major world religion and the non-religious? If you're not, then speculating on what the Mozilla Community values is just that, speculation. I see a lot of people on the Internet deciding for themselves what the Mozilla Community values. I see a lot of people leaping to conclusions based on a few tweets from a few Mozilla employees, while ignoring all the much more nuanced and longer-form blog posts from many far more experienced and long-term Mozilla employees and community members expressing very different views. (Are we really so lazy that tweets are more effective in establishing the acceptable "facts on the ground" even when there are more robust, compelling, and accurate information available in longer-form blog posts? That's a fucking shame, IMO.)

momentarily 13y ago

SJWs have taken to repeating the "consequences for your actions" mantra to justify all the atrocities they commit.