To me, one of the saddest things about this whole episode was the fact that Brendan Eich was a true technical leader. His contributions literally helped create

To me, one of the saddest things about this whole episode was the fact that Brendan Eich was a true technical leader. His contributions literally helped create and define the modern internet. I believe he was well positioned to help move Mozilla beyond simply being a browser company/nonprofit org, and advance the Mozilla mission of bringing openness and innovation to the web. Rust, ASM.js, and Firefox OS are some of the biggest projects at Mozilla and are critical areas that have to be executed well for Mozilla to gain traction in the mobile device world and beyond. I thought that Brendan Eich's background uniquely qualified him to guide Mozilla over the next few years in maturing these technologies into something that can help disrupt the trend of "walled-garden" web ecosystems. I was and still am really rooting for Mozilla to succeed in these efforts, because the web needs them to. Sadly Brendan Eich is now gone from Mozilla and along with him goes a wealth of knowledge, history, and experience that would undoubtedly have helped advance the cause of a free and open internet. All that said, I don't know as much about Chris Beard's history as I did Brendan's, and I don't know if he can provide the same level of technical leadership in these areas that Brendan Eich could have. I suppose we will find out. I remain hopeful, but not yet optimistic.