4 ms·

There is a stark contrast with how Drew Houston of Dropbox defended Condi Rice vs Mozilla's lack of effort in defending someone that instrumental part of what M

There is a stark contrast with how Drew Houston of Dropbox defended Condi Rice vs Mozilla's lack of effort in defending someone that instrumental part of what Mozilla is today. https://blog.dropbox.com/2014/04/our-commitment-to-your-rights-and-privacy/ https://blog.dropbox.com/2014/04/our-commitment-to-your-righ... His pointed response is short and stern. "We’re honored to have Dr. Rice join our board" Mozilla's was apologetic. "We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better." If Drew is the chairman of Mozilla, he would said. "In 16 years that Eich was in leadership position in Mozilla, he welcomed and worked with everyone with different personal beliefs, religious values, and sexual orientation. We are honored to have the creator of Javascript as our CEO". End of story.

GuiA 13y ago
You can't really compare Dropbox and Mozilla. They don't have the same structure, they don't have the same goals, they don't attract the same kind of leadership or employees, they don't have the same people pulling the strings, etc etc.
- asaddhamani 13y ago
  So apparently being a war criminal is a lot better than donating $1000 to Prop 8? The world would be a better place if instead of Eich, Rice resigned.
  - GuiA 13y ago
    Re-read my comment. I'm not saying it's better at all; just that you can't compare the two (and saying "If Houston had been at Mozilla..." is nonsensical). The kind of people involved with Mozilla, and the kind of structure Mozilla aspires to be, makes it logical for them to dismiss their CEO in the way they did. The kind of people involved with Dropbox, and the kind of structure Dropbox aspires to be, makes it logical for them to defend their board of directors choice and not back down. (FWIW I have deep disgust for some of the actions taken by both Rice and Eich.)
    - zheshishei 13y ago
      Has Eich done anything else besides donating to Prop 8? It might just be me, but the way I'm parsing the postscript is that both Rice AND Eich have multiple actions that invoke disgust. Or is it that Eich's one action is on an equal level with any one of Rice'smultiple actions?
      - MetaCosm 13y ago
        Three major points. 1. Eich's action had no complexity or other goals. Eich supported something where the SINGULAR purpose was to strip a class of people of a right they had only recently acquired. There was no complexity to it, no shades, it wasn't as part of his duties, it wasn't as part of a team, it wasn't as something he was forced into, it wasn't something he regretted. 2. Mozilla isn't Dropbox 3. CEO isn't Board Member.
arrrg 13y ago
Do you really think that makes the difference? Some decide to stick with it, others don’t. That’s the only difference I can see. And I don’t think either decision is always the right one. I think it’s important to be consistent in how you apply your principles and to be willing to listen to people telling you your principles suck and to change your principles if their arguments are convincing. That, to me, is the bare minimum to be a decent organisation. Add to that actually having decent principles and you are getting there. In that context the “bullying” framing makes zero sense to me. People were unhappy with the principles of an organisation, people voiced their opinion and acted on their belief (by stopping to use products of the organisation). So far so completely harmless. The organisations decided to react or not and that’s that. The bottom line is that you can expect to lose customers if you do certain things. Oh, wow. What an insight. Still has nothing to do with bullying.
- bzbarsky 13y ago
  > So far so completely harmless. For a start, you're ignoring the death threats a number of people received, no? This wasn't just about people organizing boycotts; this was about a media-circus-fueled full on hate mail campaign.
  - hackuser 13y ago
    bz, It sucks to face the feeding frenzy. This one may have looked bad from the inside, when you see every response, but from the outside it was a ripple in the news for a day or two. Most people I talk to, including those who follow the news and get animated over 'political correctness', don't even know about it. I explained it to a few at dinner last night. As I posted elsewhere, if you divide the responses you got by 500,000,000, you get a small number. Thanks for your hard work. Don't let the haters create a bunker mentality.
    - bzbarsky 13y ago
      Oh, sure. I'm not saying most people are the sort who send hate mail. It only takes a few tens of thousands to make life pretty unearable for a single person who receives the mail, though. :(
Yoric 13y ago
Mozillian here: Mozilla is not a company like Dropbox. Mozilla is first and foremost a community. We don't wait for our leaders or our PR team to decide whether we defend someone. We do it from the roots, and that's what many of us did (see the community blogs at http://planet.mozilla.org http://planet.mozilla.org). Others in the same community decided to attack Brendan's position, which is just as acceptable. Now, you are right, Mitchell Baker's statement is very apologetic. Remember that she is (or at least was) long-time friend with Brendan Eich and that she probably was hit very hard by the tsunami.
- hackuser 13y ago
  > We don't wait for our leaders or our PR team to decide whether we defend someone. We do it from the roots, That sounds find in principal, but it wasn't effective enough. As a strong supporter (and very minor contributor), please take this the right way: Mozilla needs much better public communication; it's a continuing problem IMHO. In fact, arguably Mozilla depends on public goodwill more than the for-profit companies.

GuiA 13y ago

You can't really compare Dropbox and Mozilla. They don't have the same structure, they don't have the same goals, they don't attract the same kind of leadership or employees, they don't have the same people pulling the strings, etc etc.

asaddhamani 13y ago
So apparently being a war criminal is a lot better than donating $1000 to Prop 8? The world would be a better place if instead of Eich, Rice resigned.
- GuiA 13y ago
  Re-read my comment. I'm not saying it's better at all; just that you can't compare the two (and saying "If Houston had been at Mozilla..." is nonsensical). The kind of people involved with Mozilla, and the kind of structure Mozilla aspires to be, makes it logical for them to dismiss their CEO in the way they did. The kind of people involved with Dropbox, and the kind of structure Dropbox aspires to be, makes it logical for them to defend their board of directors choice and not back down. (FWIW I have deep disgust for some of the actions taken by both Rice and Eich.)
  - zheshishei 13y ago
    Has Eich done anything else besides donating to Prop 8? It might just be me, but the way I'm parsing the postscript is that both Rice AND Eich have multiple actions that invoke disgust. Or is it that Eich's one action is on an equal level with any one of Rice'smultiple actions?
    - MetaCosm 13y ago
      Three major points. 1. Eich's action had no complexity or other goals. Eich supported something where the SINGULAR purpose was to strip a class of people of a right they had only recently acquired. There was no complexity to it, no shades, it wasn't as part of his duties, it wasn't as part of a team, it wasn't as something he was forced into, it wasn't something he regretted. 2. Mozilla isn't Dropbox 3. CEO isn't Board Member.

arrrg 13y ago

Do you really think that makes the difference? Some decide to stick with it, others don’t. That’s the only difference I can see. And I don’t think either decision is always the right one. I think it’s important to be consistent in how you apply your principles and to be willing to listen to people telling you your principles suck and to change your principles if their arguments are convincing. That, to me, is the bare minimum to be a decent organisation. Add to that actually having decent principles and you are getting there. In that context the “bullying” framing makes zero sense to me. People were unhappy with the principles of an organisation, people voiced their opinion and acted on their belief (by stopping to use products of the organisation). So far so completely harmless. The organisations decided to react or not and that’s that. The bottom line is that you can expect to lose customers if you do certain things. Oh, wow. What an insight. Still has nothing to do with bullying.

bzbarsky 13y ago
> So far so completely harmless. For a start, you're ignoring the death threats a number of people received, no? This wasn't just about people organizing boycotts; this was about a media-circus-fueled full on hate mail campaign.
- hackuser 13y ago
  bz, It sucks to face the feeding frenzy. This one may have looked bad from the inside, when you see every response, but from the outside it was a ripple in the news for a day or two. Most people I talk to, including those who follow the news and get animated over 'political correctness', don't even know about it. I explained it to a few at dinner last night. As I posted elsewhere, if you divide the responses you got by 500,000,000, you get a small number. Thanks for your hard work. Don't let the haters create a bunker mentality.
  - bzbarsky 13y ago
    Oh, sure. I'm not saying most people are the sort who send hate mail. It only takes a few tens of thousands to make life pretty unearable for a single person who receives the mail, though. :(

Yoric 13y ago

Mozillian here: Mozilla is not a company like Dropbox. Mozilla is first and foremost a community. We don't wait for our leaders or our PR team to decide whether we defend someone. We do it from the roots, and that's what many of us did (see the community blogs at http://planet.mozilla.org http://planet.mozilla.org). Others in the same community decided to attack Brendan's position, which is just as acceptable. Now, you are right, Mitchell Baker's statement is very apologetic. Remember that she is (or at least was) long-time friend with Brendan Eich and that she probably was hit very hard by the tsunami.

hackuser 13y ago
> We don't wait for our leaders or our PR team to decide whether we defend someone. We do it from the roots, That sounds find in principal, but it wasn't effective enough. As a strong supporter (and very minor contributor), please take this the right way: Mozilla needs much better public communication; it's a continuing problem IMHO. In fact, arguably Mozilla depends on public goodwill more than the for-profit companies.