It's ridiculous that people can't join causes because of their political beliefs. So the community is saying we don't want people standing up for free software if they are also against gay marriage. Should we go all-out liberal and say representatives of our cause must be pro-abortion, pro-pot, pro-gun control, pro-socialized healthcare? Hell, the conservatives can do the same thing too! We'll make sure there's only 2 political parties you can vote for and if you like some ideas from one and some from the other, too bad! All your opinions must be grouped together, and the whole world should be divided into 2 opposite ends.
Or we can live in a world where we respect everyone's beliefs. We can allow them to join both liberal and conservative causes, because we're not 2 political parties fighting but individual humans all trying to make the world a better place? It's amazing the mentality with politics these days, where people have to risk their life just for standing up for themselves.
Should we go all-out liberal and say representatives of our cause must be...
That "must be..." bit is the antithesis of "liberal". Seems the banner of "liberal" was waved only to get unpopular views tolerated until the "liberals" garnered enough influence to silence their opposition. To go "all-out liberal" would say "representatives of our cause must respect those who think abortion is murder, pot is self-destructive, guns are vital for self-defense, and one's healthcare is not subject to public compulsion; we don't agree, but respect that sensible people can and do hold differing views because of differing axioms. Since the subject at hand is web browsing software, and those subjects have absolutely nothing to do with this, we will not ostracize people because of those common differences of irrelevant opinion."
I have heard this named as a difference between liberals and progressives. Progressives want to reform away everything they think is wrong, in the name of societal progress. Liberals, while not being conservative (opposed to change), care more for liberty and equality, respecting even views they don't like.
That's kind of the way I see it. I don't know if there are solid definitions for these terms, so I'm open to corrections if I'm way off here.
I would prefer just calling it the 'Free and Open Society' (ala Karl Popper's book The Open Society and Its Enemies[1]). IMO any political philosophy that says things "must go this way" or that somehow their ideas are handed down from a higher power is harmful (i.e. authoritarianism). It's not about trying to promote inequality either, and using the free market or something as an excuse, it's about promoting criticism and transparency. And I truly believe political philosophies like Marxism are against critical thinking and anti-science. Most people who espouse some kind of Marxist beliefs have never bothered reading any Popper which is quite telling to me.
inb4 "but that sounds like libertarianism which everyone knows only rich bigoted fedora wearing assholes like!"
No, that is pluralism. Liberalism actually means something. They are not mutually exclusive.
edit: This story was correctly flagged off the homepage. There are other places far more appropriate on the internet to learn about political philosophy than HN if you're sincerely interested, and they are not hard to find.
I don't think he necessarily meant that you need to respect the beliefs themselves, especially if you don't agree with them.
Rather, I think it's more about everyone respecting the ability of everyone else to hold their own set of beliefs, even if you disagree with theirs, and even if they may disagree with yours.
In this particular incident we've seen a lot of hypocrisy. We've seen a lot of people calling for "tolerance" and "equality", yet to them that means merely that their viewpoint must be the only one that can be held or expressed. It ends up being a very quaint, twisted interpretation of tolerance and equality.
Respecting the right of someone to have a belief does not mean ignoring that belief when deciding if you like them.
1. Eich is absolutely allowed to be against gay marriage.
2. The Mozilla community is absolutely allowed to be against Eich because of his position on gay marriage.
This is not a discrimination case where Eich is being excluded from a job because of beliefs unrelated to his job. This is a case where Eich is being elected to a job where his job is to represent the Mozilla community. But he doesn't obviously represent the community – potentially disqualifying him from the job.
> This is a case where Eich is being elected to a job where his job is to represent the Mozilla community.
Is the Mozilla community asking him to represent their views on marriage?
If he's making the donations as a private citizen, then it strikes me as odd that he's somehow unqualified to talk about software.
Is the next step asking people to step down because they voted for the losing candidate who represented slightly less than 51% of the voting public? (That's a serious questions & a logical next step in an increasingly partisan ideology that thinks in black & white rather than shades of grey).
> Is the Mozilla community asking him to represent their views on marriage?
No, but why does that matter? The community doesn't want anything to do with him because he's a bigot. He's allowed to do what he wants and the community is allowed to shun him if they want.
If you do not respect people's freedom to hold the most fringe and controversial of opinions, then you are opposed to free speech by nature. You don't have to agree with the opinion being expressed, but with the right to express it.
I'm not sure who the Timecube guy is, but you include the KKK with that & you defend their ability to say what they believe. That's what free speech is.
"I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire
Okay, stupid idea - maybe, but am I going to tell the internet to take his site down? No.
When did we get afraid to let people make up their own minds on things? For every out-there crazy idea that's the work of a nut-job, there's one out-there crazy idea that just might work.
It was my mis-interpretation of "respect the ability of everyone to hold their own set of beliefs" to mean free speech/thought that led me to mention Time Cube. Of course he should be able to have his site. But I might decide I wouldn't want to work with him, trust his opinion, or have him represent me.
Is anyone saying that Eich shouldn't be able to believe what he wants? Or are people upset that someone campaigning against civil liberties is now representing and leading Mozilla?
They have their beliefs. You have yours. You presumably want to be able to hold your own beliefs. They presumably want to be able to hold their own beliefs. You may disagree with their beliefs, and you should be free to express this, if you so desire. They may disagree with your beliefs, and they should be able to express this, if they so desire. It's irrelevant who "you" are in this case, and who "they" are.
Even if they choose not to respect your ability to hold your own beliefs, it's probably best if you still respect their ability to hold that belief.
You're referring to free speech? Of course everyone should be able to hold whatever belief they want and say what they like. Other people should be free to judge them too, and discourage them.
Isn't that what this is all about? Eich expressed his beliefs by contributing to a cause that actively harmed many people's personal lives. Now people are upset about that and thinking perhaps he shouldn't lead Mozilla. I don't see any free speech issues here.
Finally someone who gets it. Free speech isn't about some abstract right that you can only technically exercise. Everyone also has the right to associate with whoever they chose. But launching public campaigns designed to restrict the speech of someone is not okay in my view, it's like a form of harrassment I think. Launching campaigns to _discredit their ideas_ however, is better I think. Also just launching a campaign to publicize their views is fine, as long as they're backed up with evidence (which they are in this case).
I may be on the wrong side of this issue but I refuse to take part in boycotts because I think they're ineffective and just harmful, unless of course the product itself is harming people in some way.
No, neither of you get it. All you have is the right to speech free from governmental impedance; you do not have any sort of right to speech free from civil consequences.
Boycotts are a form of free speech too, you know. How come you're not so antsy to defend those rights, I wonder?
While it may not technically be a violation of laws protecting freedom of speech, consider for example...
- Organizing a group of bookstores to stop selling a certain book because you find it offensive for any reason
- Using your privileged position at say, a conference, to get other speakers removed because you dislike them
- as a web service provider, removing a website about a topic you find offensive
None of these have anything to do with the government making a law that infringes on free speech. If they don't violate laws protecting free speech then they certainly piss all over the spirit of it. Or are they only bad when the speech is the "right" kind of speech?
Also as I said elsewhere in the thread, most of the time I find boycotts ineffective, especially when it would only jurt innocent people and when the change it creates is merely cosmetic. You're certainly free to boycott anything you wish, and to ask others to boycott, but you can't expect everyone to agree it's a good idea.
boycotts are fine. the problem is that people are taking personal issues and making them into corporate issues, and that's what is not OK.
a person's private life and professional life are SEPARATE. You shouldn't punish Mozilla employees for things the person at the helm does IN HIS PRIVATE LIFE
What does it mean to respect a belief, or have it equal to respecting the person? Some people would have others hung for dating outside their race - what does it entail exactly to "respect that person"? Like, admit they are human and should be allowed to hold their own beliefs? Because you can do that while holding someone in complete contempt.
It means that you attack their beliefs, not the person themself. Or you publicize their views and say that you disagree with them. In this case there are some people doing just that, which is fine. However IMO trying to launch a boycott against Firefox is silly and poorly thought out. You are only increasing the chance that people will be harrassed (disrespected) for their browser choice, and pushing people towards non-free software like Chrome and MSIE.
> you can think the the beliefs are stupid, but you can still respect them.
I have no idea what you're saying here. What does respecting stupid ideas even look like?
EDIT: I respect people's right to hold and express stupid ideas. That does not mean I cannot discuss, at length and with vigor, how stupid they are, or encourage others to avoid financially supporting the people who hold those stupid ideas. I, too, have the right to free speech.
I've often found that when an issue divides a group that would otherwise cooperate willingly, the problem is that the two sides are battling over the wrong issue. In this case, the CEO-ship of Brendan Eich has been continually rehashed as an issue of freedom of thought/opinion/speech vs bigotry and exclusion...but that's not the real issue.
The real issue is money as speech.
I'd wager that most of those against Eich's position would not begrudge anyone freedom of opinion, or private speech, or even public speech so long as such opinions or speech did not elevate to action. On the other hand had Eich fired a LGBT staffer based on their sexual orientation, not only would he be in the wrong legally, but I think even those carrying the banner of free speech in this case would agree that his promotion was wrong.
So the real question is: by donating money to the Proposition 8 cause, was Eich exercising his right to free speech? or was he taking a discriminatory action?
Of course, you may note this is exactly the same issue in question with the Citizen's United decision. I think this larger question, is money speech or action, will be one of the most important questions of our time...
> So the real question is: by donating money to the Proposition 8 cause, was Eich exercising his right to free speech? or was he taking a discriminatory action?
It's clearly free speech. Had he fired or refused to hire someone over their orientation, it would be discriminatory action. That being said, as the CEO of Mozilla, he is the face and voice of Mozilla. So it is natural that people are looking into how he has exercised his speech, not just actions in the past, to see how he will shape Mozilla in the future.
I make my living coding in JavaScript/CoffeeScript and my personal hobbies include hacking 3D UIs in the browser. To say that my life was directly and positively impacted by Eich's past actions is an understatement. On the other hand, there are many people, more than a few in this very community, who were indirectly and negatively impacted by the small part he played when exercising his right to free speech.
To me the bigger question is, can you officially act 'for' when you personally speak 'against' something?
I'm curious how many people would stop using javascript because of this. Given all sorts of ads & analytics are all served up with it, I bet many people won't.
It's a slippery slope if we try to paint people as "wholy-bad" or "wholy-good" based on one or two hot-button issues. Human's are flawed, complicated creatures. Trying to pass judgment on their entire career & capabilities based on one or two actions not related and/or affecting their job is a dangerous decision to make.
I don't agree with what Eich did -- i'm 100% pro lgbt rights, and i think prop 8 was just plain wrong.
but at the same time, as much as i'm entitled to my opinion, he's entitled to his. mozilla foundation never donated a dime for prop 8, brendan eich did. as such we should 'judge' him, as a person, for it, not him as the ceo.
as evelyn beatrice hall said "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" (wikipedia says she said it, not voltaire[0])
There's a big difference between defending someone's right to say dumb things, and suggesting that we should ignore that they said dumb things.
If you see a movie star use a racial slur, the natural response isn't "well, he wasn't on set so I still support him as an actor". The natural response is to recategorize that person as racist, and have a dim awareness of that while considering what films to watch and while watching them perform.
Once you're aware of it, the knowledge that the CEO of Mozilla gets utility from oppressing gay people is something you're aware of whenever you see the Mozilla brand. I don't think that's illogical or something Mrs Hall would say Voltaire thinks is bad.
> So the real question is: by donating money to the Proposition 8 cause, was Eich exercising his right to free speech? or was he taking a discriminatory action?
As I learned in High School Debate Club, most un-winnable, never-ending arguments are actually disagreements over definitions.
Yeah, in most competitive debate events, sides are predetermined, thus each competitor has the incentive to continue to argue ad infinitum about the most basic points, for instance as I debated much over the last several months, what exactly the word "substantially" means. Due to that, the competitor's real views are irrelevant.
> Of course, you may note this is exactly the same issue in question with the Citizen's United decision. I think this larger question, is money speech or action, will be one of the most important questions of our time...
I think this is a fundamentally different issue than the Citizen's United decision. Here, it's a person's speech/action. I firmly believe that people should be allowed to express whatever opinion through words and/or actions, even if it is donating money to a cause, or choosing not to associate with certain people (e.g. gays/Jews/insert favourite -ism). However, I strongly oppose awarding the same rights to political/commercial/non-profit organizations - I don't think a company should be able to donate money to political parties, nor fire an employee because of his/her skin color, sexual orientation, or political beliefs.
There's another issue too, which is "what does inclusiveness even mean" in the context of a global open source project?
Certainly adopting the view that same-sex marriage is a human we should export to countries like Singapore is non-inclusive, and alienates people based on culture.
At a certain point, I think we have to accept that reasonable people can disagree on almost any issue, and we have to live with that.
On the other hand had Eich fired a LGBT staffer based on their sexual orientation, not only would he be in the wrong legally, but I think even those carrying the banner of free speech in this case would agree that his promotion was wrong.
Yes, because in the context of marriage in the US, I think basic fairness requires certain things. Where that context is different (India, Indonesia, Singapore, Poland) the same demands are not at issue. I actually see Eich's donation as far less offensive (even though I see it as wrong) than I do Google's efforts at pushing the issue internationally. The US is no longer a culture for the most part where people get married, have kids, and then retire with their kids. Opponents of same-sex marriage should be working instead on bringing back that ideal, rather than upholding the rights of opposite sex couples not to reproduce and then trying to deny marriage rights to same-sex couples.
So you're saying that if he didn't donate money but instead blogged his opinion, less people would be upset? Seems like it would be the opposite in this case.
This has nothing to do with rights or money as speech, for most of the participants.
This is all about punishing the bad evil bigot man. He has committed the sin of not throwing his arms around gay marriage and he must pay. He cannot be allowed to have such an important position; why, that's almost like a reward for hate.
So money buys influence to exclude people of their basic right of having a voice? Perhaps I'm naive, but money should never trump an individual's right to be heard. Are we living in a warped reality that we think otherwise?
What do you guys want out of this? Do you want Eich to step down from CEO to CTO? Quit Mozilla entirely (and never get employment at any other company you use?) Issue a statement publicly renouncing his views?
Would it be better if he publicly lied about his views? Are we promoting an environment where you have to announce all the "correct" political positions to gain employment?
I guess this depends on how important the issue is. In this case, it seems to be an issue which is fairly important to a lot of people - that of civil liberties.
Wouldn't the most "pro-civil-liberties" position be to have the government not be involved in a private arrangement between two citizens - regardless of gender?
Would it be better if he publicly lied about his views?
He cant(he donated publicly).
Now he is free to believe what's he wants to believe,just as you and I are free to have an opinion about the subject.Humans are not perfect we all have some level of bigotery and prejudice,noone can deny that. Even I who is pro gay rights.
Are we promoting an environment where you have to announce all the "correct" political positions to gain employment?
Only if you are a public figure in that company,and the CEO obviously is.
He is in the tech business,where these issues are becoming important today. Misogyny,racism at the work place are important subjects right now,we all saw what happened with github and how it can hurt a brand.
It's all about wether Eich as CEO will hurt Firefox and Mozilla brand or not, I believe it will.
It's kind of absurd to see this sort of contradictory reasoning.
I think there'd be outrage if it was suggested that some employee of some company should be fired just because he chose to spend his own time and/or money supporting a pro-gay cause.
Yet as we've seen in this case, it's apparently deemed perfectly acceptable by those who'd be outraged in the other case to level the exact same kind of discrimination against somebody who supports an opposite viewpoint.
I can't see how such contradictory behavior will help garner support. Fighting discrimination with discrimination is self-defeating.
It really hurts to know that a person is being ostracized for having political views. I think the pro-gay crowd has gone too far when they try to push an individual to support "their" stance, or punish them if they don't. We should be living in world of balance with supporters on both sides, not one in which there is fear for expressing or having expressed belief.
>We should be living in world of balance with supporters on both sides,
No, we should not. We should live in a world with correct ideas, full stop. Some ideas are stupid, like racism, creationism, or flat-earth models, and don't deserve "balance". What you call "pro-gay" is actually a human rights issue.
Certainly everyone would be all over him if he was promoting racism, right? Or donating to groups to track down and execute people that have committed apostasy? Certainly Stormfront shouldn't be ostracized for having "political views".
Where do you draw the line? Is disliking gay people to the extent of wanting to deny them rights less important than Mozilla's goals?
Edit: I don't mean to imply that people shouldn't be able to hold incorrect (untrue) beliefs - free speech and thought should be strongly defended. But beliefs are obviously invalid and it should be fair to judge and dismiss people stating untrue things. We don't leap to someone's defense when they say the Earth is flat, why should we defend "two sides" for human rights depending on sexual preference?
> We should live in a world with correct ideas, full stop.
What a nice world that would be. Are all your ideas correct? How can you know?
I see gay rights as a human rights as well, but I realize that's partially because I learned about it in a context permissive to that interpretation. If someone was raised in a society where they were taught gay people were abominations, and their mind is no longer plastic enough to eliminate that impression, perhaps they're safe as the COO.
At some point, some idea you don't agree with will become central to society's values. Maybe you'll be able to understand why you were wrong, or maybe you won't, but I don't think your job performance will be affected either way. I think political litmus tests for positions should make us all extremely uneasy. Would you accept a job that requires you to swear an oath to protect gay rights? What about the rights of trans* individuals? What about the rights of polygamists? The biblical literalists?
For me, I suppose it depends on what the oath means by 'rights.'
He donated money to prevent gay marriage. It's not really much of a stretch to conclude he's a homophobe. His intentions are pretty transparently obvious.
This is always an interesting word definition to me. Just because someone donated against something, might mean he's against it it, but doesn't mean he's "scared" of it (the definition of "phobia" being "fear").
The equivalence of the two words into it's current meaning has always been interesting to me.
I, too, dislike the "phobe" applied to things - it seems like a dirty bit of rhetoric. But despite the definition, it's pretty clear the meaning of homophobe is someone that dislikes/disapproves of homosexuality.
I know that & get it, but by choosing that word itself, it becomes a loaded & inaccurate word which hurts the argument (because which many anti-gay marriage people can easily refute the accusation by simply saying "that's ridiculous, I'm not scared of gay people").
Your response indicates you've likely spent little-to-none meaningful time with any of the people you're attributing words to. Very few people I've met that hold those views would say that's an accurate view of their beliefs (WBC not withstanding, but they're outliers).
I don't think any time I'd spend with those types of people could ever be meaningful.
Honestly, they can say they're "not scared of gay people" all they want, but the actions of a person who would donate their money or time to get same-sex marriage outlawed speak much, much louder than their words.
> I don't think any time I'd spend with those types of people could ever be meaningful.
That's the same attitude you're accusing them of. It's not helpful on either side of the debate.
There's a difference between being scared & disagreeing. Your refusal to acknowledge the difference says more about your desire to perpetuate your viewpoint of them rather than attempt to understand their background. It's one thing to disagree with someone, it's another to refuse to come to the table with them at all in the first place.
I think we could continue to go back & forth all day, but you don't seem very open to the idea of listening to people with opposing viewpoints :).
Not really, I just think you've done a very poor job of equating "a difference of opinion" with "civil rights". And that's really what it boils down to: the anti-same-sex marriage side is just wrong on this one. And wrong opinions don't deserve respect.
See that's where we fundamentally disagree. I respect all opinions - even if they're wrong, offensive or I disagree with them completely. That's the whole point of free speech
This is a wrong and dangerous interpretation of free speech. The whole point of free speech is that people are allowed to hold differing opinions and the need to respect their right to /voice/ such opinions. It is NOT about respecting the opinions themselves, and certainly not about giving equal weight or consideration to all opinions.
This latter interpretation is how we get creationists demanding equal time be given to teaching their "theory" in schools. They certainly have a right to not believe in evolution, and even shudder to promote that opinion, but that doesn't mean that opinion isn't stupid and somehow deserves to be given equal standing to evolution in the public sphere.
He could very well know that any clarification, regardless of what is actually expressed, will be turned against him in one way or another, and will be used to further propagate this issue's prominence. Saying less may actually prove to be the quickest way to get an issue like this to blow over.
> Certainly everyone would be all over him if he was promoting racism, right?
Well the line on racism seems to keep getting moved. Everyone got all up in arms about #cancelcolbert recently about something he said out of context.
I'm curious about the urge we feel to protest/boycott everything & making people we disagree with "go away" rather than having difficult discussions with people who hold different viewpoints than us.
I suspect it has to do with the fact that the latter is much more difficult & it often is tough to directly hate someone once you take the time to personally know them.
Every idea you cite as stupid was once believed to be true. Respecting the right of people to make stupid statements makes it much easier for us all to realize someday which of own beliefs are stupid.
But surely making stupid statements or performing harmful actions isn't consequence free? And we should not give equal platforms or "balance" to every statement, should we?
Aristotle believed women had less teeth than men. If someone states that belief now, is it wrong to say "no that's wrong", and then laugh/ignore them?
Making stupid statements and performing harmful actions are vastly different things. Focusing on the former: making stupid statements does have consequences: Others may question the judgement of the person making the statements. For whatever reason, Eich's views haven't raised those questions in those closest to him, perhaps, because they aren't discussed.
If someone stated that men and women have different numbers of teeth, why not encourage an experiment? It's not an absurd statement unless you've gathered evidence or trust the evidence you've read elsewhere.
The challenge in this case is that morality can't be determined objectively without reference to some other framework, which itself is likely subjective. So it doesn't tell us whether Eich can reason or incorporate evidence. He likely formulates his view from a different set of assumptions.
Is it? We constantly improve our knowledge and understanding. I don't think it's a stretch to say we don't want invalid ideas (like "homeopathy cures diseases") being accepted as true.
Perhaps my phrasing was off - I didn't mean to imply that other ideas shouldn't exist, just that they should not be accepted as true, nor should every issue be two-sided and seek a balance.
Even so, if we could all agree on basic axioms and goals, I don't think it's too far-fetched to say we'd all like to arrive at correct ideas.
Would you not agree that the "pro-gay" crowd has the right to express their beliefs about who should be in charge of a product they use? I don't know much about this situation, or Mr. Eich, however, as far as I can tell, that's free speech too.
I agree with you in the short term, and disagree in the ideal/long-term.
I think we can replace this pachinko machine of representative democracy, not with some one or two dimensional direct-democracy, but with the kind of thing that cypherpunks have been thinking about for decades.
But in the short-term, the current zeitgeist, which I _rejoice_ in, as an ex-mormon 'queer' person (so queer I can't categorize myself), I am stricken by the thought that Mozilla may be suffocated by people I would like to hold hands with.
If the "pro-gay crowd" were pushing to deny Brendan's basic human rights on the basis of who he is, you might have a case.
Brendan supported Proposition 8, which had but one purpose: to deny to a certain group of people a right which is recognized in the US as fundamental. If you're unable to see the difference between disliking someone else's marriage, and campaigning to have their marriage annulled by law, perhaps you should examine that more closely.
It is great that people are being ostracized for having primitive, hateful beliefs, and society is making it known that demented opinions such as this will not be tolerated, and that a carrier of such beliefs taints everything they are associated with.
Eich is going to destroy Mozilla over his own ego of wanting to be CEO, when anyone worth their CEO-salt knows that there is no chance in hell that they can effectively lead with this much controversy hanging over their head.
Realistically, if anything is going to "destroy" Mozilla, it'll probably have much more to do with their software offerings than with this particular incident.
I'm talking about things like Firefox trying to imitate Chrome at the expense of usability. Or the abandonment of Thunderbird. Or resources wasted on a failed effort like Persona, or wasted on software like Firefox OS that's inherently inferior to its many well-established competitors.
Mozilla's influence is directly related to the number of people using its software products. I see far more of its existing users moving away from its software due to usability problems or a lack of maintenance than I see moving due to purely political anger directed toward Eich.
it's feels like they are desperate at Mozilla corp... not sure they are going to last long... and this has damage Mozilla and Firefox brand permanently.
> Eich: Two things. One is -- without getting into my personal beliefs, which I separate from my Mozilla work -- when people learned of the donation, they felt pain. I saw that in friends' eyes, [friends] who are LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered]. I saw that in 2012. I am sorry for causing that pain.
To everyone yelling about bigotry & discrimination, if you actually read the article & those words, those don't sound like the words of a bigot to me.
I think the idea that religious extremists are always assholes is convenient but unrealistic. Most of the time, most of them are just normal people, even pleasant ones.
I'm not sure phrasing it as being a bigot or not is helpful, and neither is the money/speech categorization.
Not knowing Mr Eich personally, I'd give him the benefit of doubt. I believe him when he says that he has LGBT friends, and that they were hurt by his actions, and that maybe he was sorry for causing that pain. It must be deeply uncomfortable to believe in something that compels a person to hurt their friends. It's not his religious views per se that got him into hot water, it's the willingness to use legislation to deny a group of people equal rights which still stands as an unethical act.
Speaking as someone who both admires Eich as a technologist but was disappointed by the message Mozilla was conveying by his appointment as CEO, I really don't care that much if he's a religious fanatic. It's not only his right to believe these things, it also doesn't really matter. His achievements can very well stand on their own, and likewise acknowledging the achievements of a person does not imply endorsing all of their beliefs.
Beyond the initial ethics violation, Mr Eich has done nothing wrong that I can see. The fault lies solely with the Mozilla board for appointing him to a position that consists of little else but projecting the public image of the foundation.
I just wanted to say I appreciated a well thought out & reasoned comment in a discussion filled with people yelling "bigot", "homophobe" at a person they don't know personally.
There's often several lenses to see things through. People are complicated, messy things.
I really think that people need to understand the difference in personal and professional life. In fact, the tendency to make the two collide is one of the biggest problems with this whole stinking country. People have personal lives, and they have professional lives, and others really don't need to go about trying to confuse the two.
Paying money to influence policy that oppresses a group of people isn't your "personal" fucking life. It's personal only if it doesn't affect other people. I really really respect this dude, he's straight up legend. And no, I don't think he should quit as CEO of Moz, that's totally unrelated to his politics, if that was your point. But I do think it's really annoying when bigotry is supported in the name of inclusiveness. You think it's okay to ruin someone's happiness with your megabucks, yet you talk about inclusiveness? Get the fuck out. This interview is bullshit.
There's no point to doing that. He can't step down or be removed as the inventor of javascript, but he could step down or be removed as CEO of Mozilla.
It also tires me that the all of the opposite side is being labelled as "homophobic bigots," just look at the extremism in this very thread with comparisons of Eich to the KKK.
Growing up, my deeply religious immediate and extended family was surprised by my turning out to be the black swan secularist. As you alluded to I find that, as usual, ignorance breeds these misunderstandings.
Having many personal discussions with many the deeply religious, I can honestly say that the majority do have empathy for those who are being discriminated against, abused, disowned, lynched and executed because of their expression of gender identity.
This isn't a hate issue. This is an ignorance issue.
Instead of shaming those like Eich, who (assumedly) take issue with their idea of the institution of marriage being trampled (which is reinforced by herd mentality), we should all try and engage personally to make them understand.
Does that mean we should respect their beliefs? No, but we should strive for dialogue.
Having known quite a few people on both sides, I'm struck at how poor both sides are at the communication, understanding & articulation of their beliefs despite being good individuals on either side.
i dislike this spin here. boycotting a company, asking for resignations, these are common methods of protest. yet, when LGBT people do the same, we are being "exclusive"? we must accept any kind of views of Mozilla's CEO, otherwise its openness is lost and Firefox will fail? that's just silly.
personally, i'm most tired of this argument, that it's important for "freedom" to let people discriminate me in peace. that i should not complain about being discriminated, lest i ruin the freedom of society.
i love Firefox, and I'm still using it. never got this close to reconsidering that decision before.
>A world without Firefox and without Firefox OS and without our approach to putting the user at the center of cloud services instead of having users get pulled into walled gardens -- I think that would be a pretty dark world.
What Eich fails to see that for many people, we are only just moving away from the "dark world" where gay marriage is illegal. I appreciate his work for Mozilla, but it's double-think to advocate "inclusivity" while promoting narrow views of marriage.
"Gay marriage" has nothing to do with OSS web browsers. 'tis a dark world where people cannot work toward common goals when their views on completely unrelated subjects differ.
If the owner of my neighborhood coffee shop had gone on record as supporting SOPA/PIPA/et al, I would be strongly inclined to stop going to that coffeeshop and giving them any of my money. I would also tell my friends about the situation so that they might also take similar actions if they felt so inclined.
I can tell you that, in the context of this hypothetical situation, any arguments that my actions are uncalled-for because "coffee has nothing to do with the Internet" would not have much impact on me.
What if it was a co-operative store selling coffee and only the main manager was supporting SOPA? That's more like how the Firefox situation is. These boycotts will inevitably hurt Mozilla employees as a whole, both gay and straight -- way more than they will hurt Eich personally.
I try to avoid using Javascript whenever possible, though that has nothing to do with Brendan Eich. And just to clarify, my hypothetical was in response to one specific argument. I didn't say that I personally was joining those calling to boycott Firefox. I honestly don't know how I feel, because it's not a simple matter. But I object to those who argue that it is a simple matter.
If it was possible, we'd have ditched JavaScript a long time ago. People seem upset over the fact that Mozilla leadership is choosing a person that admits to wanting to discriminate. People seem far less concerned about what assorted engineers might think or do.
While I might take a similar stand against the hypothetical coffee shop, I believe your analogy misses an additional point. Opposing gay marriage is favoring discrimination against gay people. It's detrimental to the organization and the community for someone apparently prejudiced against gay people to lead Mozilla, which appears to be the case.
We'll see how the promised inclusivity efforts go. If he's genuinely committed to inclusivity, great! For the moment, however, I have reservations.
Perhaps people have a problem with hypocrisy? He's "committed to inclusivity", but we know from personal actions that he isn't really, and would be happy if governments and society continued to discriminate.
I think to a lot of people its not completely unrelated subjects. How can someone say they strive for an "inclusive" work environment when they hold non-inclusive beliefs? Do we really believe that Mozilla can foster an inclusive work environment? Can we believe Brendan Eich? All of these things affect the work atmosphere at Mozilla and in tern the software that is developed there.
This isn't about respecting beliefs, this is about the CEO of mozilla and if we can believe him and how his beliefs can and will affect the company.
The article mentions Indonesia because that's where some publicly-acknowledged contributors are. Your comment mentions Indonesia like it's a backwater to be looked down on. Would your comment have been different if the other homophobes were local to Eich?
In defence of homosexual marriage, you seem happy to promote racism.
Mozilla's mission requires it to serve, and engage into its projects, countries that are still many decades from matching the urban/tech/rich-world consensus on gay rights.
Indonesia is the world's 4th largest country by population, and the most-democratic of all majority-Muslim countries. It's important. And other countries that should be giant parts of open web projects are in similar positions.
Should open-web advocates from these countries, who in their personal lives express the same sort of political views on marriage as Obama did as recently as his 2008 campaign, be excluded from leadership positions at Mozilla? How deep should the proposed purge go?
Islam also has death as a penalty for apostasy. If Eich supported that, would it be OK because it's a "personal view"?
I do agree with you though, that Mozilla's work is more important than civil rights. Eventually, it would seem that all people will give up poor, invalid beliefs. It's a near certainty as technology progresses and definitely disproves religions. However an open web is in quite the opposite position.
Probably falling into the trap of combating snark with snark here, but it says a lot about you that you are pointing to people in Indonesia who don't believe in gay marriage as some kind of loony, fringe, obscure group whose name is not even worth invoking in a debate.
Tolerance means trying to accept a wide range of people and beliefs. And gay marriage, unfortunately, is against that of a lot of people. Whether we try to get them fired, or, in the Gandhian way, try to use love to get across our message peacefully, says a lot about our tolerance in the first place.
[Edit: Also, now imagine if a bunch of people of Indonesian extraction started a "Stop Pete XXXXX from hosting Y event because he is racist!" (where "X", "Y" is stuff mentioned in your profile/username) petition. How would you feel then? I think the same feelings, only to a far greater extent, are the ones going through Eich's mind. It's hard to put yourself in the mindset of someone you instinctively dislike, but try it.]
"It's pretty clear that people have latched onto this issue as a way to express their own political beliefs." seems too loaded in Eich's favor to be part of a respectable interview question.
It's ironic that people are intolerant of intolerance.
I get the 'tit for tat' argument, but if you're trying to get rid of an oppressive opinion by being oppressive, you're not really getting anywhere.
You can't really "force" anyone to believe anything. If you have to "make" someone believe something by force, then it doesn't seem like your argument is strong enough to stand on your own (a statement that's applicable to both sides of this debate).
> Though Eich refuses to discuss his own beliefs explicitly or say whether they've changed, he disagreed with the assertion that being opposed to gay-marriage rights is equivalent to being sexist or racist, and he said political and religious speech is still protected.
Really? Really?? This guy's a CEO and yet he can't figure out why he's so dreadfully wrong on this one? Doesn't bode well for the future of Mozilla.
Or we can live in a world where we respect everyone's beliefs. We can allow them to join both liberal and conservative causes, because we're not 2 political parties fighting but individual humans all trying to make the world a better place? It's amazing the mentality with politics these days, where people have to risk their life just for standing up for themselves.