5 ms·

Why I won’t mourn Mozilla

26 points by doppp 12y ago

drobilla 12y ago
Yet another fine example of why ESR seriously needs to stop pretending to be the arbiter of "hacker culture" as if he speaks for all of us.
chrisbennet 12y ago
The author of the article doesn't seem to be judging Mozilla by the work they have done...
- ewzimm 12y ago
  Also, Eich said he chose to resign because of the political pressure from the people, not pressure from Mozilla. You may believe this was a lie, but Mozilla never publicly did anything but support him as CEO. Also, there was no large reaction against Eich's politics when he served a technical role, but when he moved into the political CEO role, people looked at his politics. You may disagree that they should be analyzed at all, but it's hard to argue that CEO of Mozilla is an apolitical position.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
digitalzombie 12y ago
I thought Eich chosen to step down.
Zigurd 12y ago
Mozilla's failure w.r.t. Brendan Eich started before they "failed to defend" Brendan Eich. So blaming them for such a failure is off-target. Doing an under-resourced mobile OS that also appears to lack a workable ecosystem strategy is what could do a lot of harm to Mozilla.
jkelsey 12y ago
What a ridiculous article; such specious reasoning. The meritocracy argument is such bullshit. White, straight, privileged males love to talk about this shit so much, but then they look the other way when people are kicking out any attempt to making the playing field level for others. There is no real meritocracy when the opportunities and treatment of individuals are so unbalanced. There's just privilege. Beyond that, he's actively rooting against the only ever successful non-profit, open-source browser vendor because they didn't live up to some silly ideological expectations perfectly. Great, Mozilla is gone. Now, the only browsers that can run under the modern web are from corporations. Even further, such hypocrisy. Check this logic out: -Mozilla didn't judge Eich by the quality of his work alone, but threw him out because of how he treated gay people by donating to causes that would prevent equal treatment under the law. -I don't like Mozilla because how they treated Eich. What a petty individual.
GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
Eric Raymond has a vested interest in dudes not being held accountable for their vile opinions and / or actions. (see things like http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5001 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5001 )
- jessaustin 12y ago
  I've always had my suspicions about ESR (to be clear I'm now only defending the "Preventing visceral racism" post you link), so I clicked through and... what's the problem? Sure this is a difficult subject, and therefore isn't discussed in "polite company", but that's his blog, so caveat lector. The only "vile" things described therein are ESR's semi-automatic gut reactions. Those might be valid targets for thought policing, but fortunately for society ESR went ahead and policed up himself. His "opinions and / or actions" are totally divorced from those gut reactions. If this topic may not be discussed in this fashion, then it may not be discussed, full stop.
GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
Please nobody read the comments, but also please somebody explain this one to me: "Considering that you are throwing away probably the most efficient way to keep Islamists out of participating in the design of technological infrastructure, I really hope this is worth it."
st3fan 12y ago
It doesn’t look good for the Mozilla Foundation – especially not with so much of their funding coming from Google which of course has its own browser to push. I guess ESR did not get the memo that Mozilla decided to not extend the Google deal a few months ago. It shows how much ESR is out of touch with reality.
- aboutus 12y ago
  Google, Yahoo, the money spends the same. The error doesn't change the meaning one iota.
  - breakingcups 12y ago
    Does Yahoo make its own browser?
wtbob 12y ago
I will, because I think the world needs Firefox. But given their treatment of Eich and of user security, they deserve to end.
Pxtl 12y ago
Closed the tab when I saw it was about Eich. Love him or hate him, if he's the main source of your opinion on Mozilla then you have nothing interesting to say on the subject. Wait, this was ESR? He's quickly become the fedora to RMS' neckbeard.
CmonDev 12y ago
Also their constant push for JS is deplorable. I want to build stuff in languages I like, not transpile/script.
m0llusk 12y ago
An overly enthusiastic stream of new versions incompatible with each other may have had more to do with this. That and the ongoing problems with Flash. Politics don't really drive software distribution or even matter that much.
throw7 12y ago
I'm still bitter that mozilla did not allow the mozilla suite to continue. Instead we got the name seamonkey... which was named almost specifically to be "non politically correct", virtually guaranteeing no corporate use (you're welcome firefox team). Mozilla with their ridiculous branding/artwork/trademark management turned me off pretty much from the beginning. So, yeah, I use seamonkey personally, but it's practically non-existent in wider usage. If Mozilla fails, then I'm not sure with its future... which is something that I'd mourn.

26 points by doppp 12y ago

Yet another fine example of why ESR seriously needs to stop pretending to be the arbiter of "hacker culture" as if he speaks for all of us.

chrisbennet 12y ago

The author of the article doesn't seem to be judging Mozilla by the work they have done...

ewzimm 12y ago
Also, Eich said he chose to resign because of the political pressure from the people, not pressure from Mozilla. You may believe this was a lie, but Mozilla never publicly did anything but support him as CEO. Also, there was no large reaction against Eich's politics when he served a technical role, but when he moved into the political CEO role, people looked at his politics. You may disagree that they should be analyzed at all, but it's hard to argue that CEO of Mozilla is an apolitical position.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

digitalzombie 12y ago

I thought Eich chosen to step down.

Zigurd 12y ago

Mozilla's failure w.r.t. Brendan Eich started before they "failed to defend" Brendan Eich. So blaming them for such a failure is off-target. Doing an under-resourced mobile OS that also appears to lack a workable ecosystem strategy is what could do a lot of harm to Mozilla.

jkelsey 12y ago

What a ridiculous article; such specious reasoning. The meritocracy argument is such bullshit. White, straight, privileged males love to talk about this shit so much, but then they look the other way when people are kicking out any attempt to making the playing field level for others. There is no real meritocracy when the opportunities and treatment of individuals are so unbalanced. There's just privilege. Beyond that, he's actively rooting against the only ever successful non-profit, open-source browser vendor because they didn't live up to some silly ideological expectations perfectly. Great, Mozilla is gone. Now, the only browsers that can run under the modern web are from corporations. Even further, such hypocrisy. Check this logic out: -Mozilla didn't judge Eich by the quality of his work alone, but threw him out because of how he treated gay people by donating to causes that would prevent equal treatment under the law. -I don't like Mozilla because how they treated Eich. What a petty individual.

GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago

Eric Raymond has a vested interest in dudes not being held accountable for their vile opinions and / or actions. (see things like http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5001 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5001 )

jessaustin 12y ago
I've always had my suspicions about ESR (to be clear I'm now only defending the "Preventing visceral racism" post you link), so I clicked through and... what's the problem? Sure this is a difficult subject, and therefore isn't discussed in "polite company", but that's his blog, so caveat lector. The only "vile" things described therein are ESR's semi-automatic gut reactions. Those might be valid targets for thought policing, but fortunately for society ESR went ahead and policed up himself. His "opinions and / or actions" are totally divorced from those gut reactions. If this topic may not be discussed in this fashion, then it may not be discussed, full stop.

GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago

Please nobody read the comments, but also please somebody explain this one to me: "Considering that you are throwing away probably the most efficient way to keep Islamists out of participating in the design of technological infrastructure, I really hope this is worth it."

st3fan 12y ago

It doesn’t look good for the Mozilla Foundation – especially not with so much of their funding coming from Google which of course has its own browser to push. I guess ESR did not get the memo that Mozilla decided to not extend the Google deal a few months ago. It shows how much ESR is out of touch with reality.

aboutus 12y ago
Google, Yahoo, the money spends the same. The error doesn't change the meaning one iota.
- breakingcups 12y ago
  Does Yahoo make its own browser?

wtbob 12y ago

I will, because I think the world needs Firefox. But given their treatment of Eich and of user security, they deserve to end.

Pxtl 12y ago

Closed the tab when I saw it was about Eich. Love him or hate him, if he's the main source of your opinion on Mozilla then you have nothing interesting to say on the subject. Wait, this was ESR? He's quickly become the fedora to RMS' neckbeard.

CmonDev 12y ago

Also their constant push for JS is deplorable. I want to build stuff in languages I like, not transpile/script.

m0llusk 12y ago

An overly enthusiastic stream of new versions incompatible with each other may have had more to do with this. That and the ongoing problems with Flash. Politics don't really drive software distribution or even matter that much.

throw7 12y ago

I'm still bitter that mozilla did not allow the mozilla suite to continue. Instead we got the name seamonkey... which was named almost specifically to be "non politically correct", virtually guaranteeing no corporate use (you're welcome firefox team). Mozilla with their ridiculous branding/artwork/trademark management turned me off pretty much from the beginning. So, yeah, I use seamonkey personally, but it's practically non-existent in wider usage. If Mozilla fails, then I'm not sure with its future... which is something that I'd mourn.