I love that sheppy didn't tiptoe around how infuriating this whole thing has been, regardless of whether you thought Brendan should step down or not, what with the sensationalist media and misinformed public. I haven't been able to figure out how to constructively express my anger, but this post comes closer to it than any I've seen yet.
> In April 2012, when Brendan was CTO at Mozilla someone (unknown to me, possibly known to others)
> For more than 16 years, Brendan fought for openness and freedom on the web, and led many of the people who built that open and free web. This week, in a senseless, vicious convulsion, the web turned on him.
these things worry me. especially the latter. it worries me, because regardless of your view on whether he was a bigot or not, brendan protected the open web. his views on that matter were clear, and had a track record. we could have had a powerful, a strong ally, with clear principles. if anything his track showed that he would not let personal opinions(which btw WE DO NOT KNOW AT ALL based on one data point) get in the way of performing that duty.
I think we lost an ally. A very important ally by the way. Someone care to explain why someone would read a whole list of donations just to throw dirt at him?
the quotes are from the linked article in the article:
I was rather sympathetic initially, but the campaigners lost me completely when they went after Firefox.
That is just the dumbest precedent they could have possibly set. Because the important question is: What will be the next technology to boycott when a high-profile figure screws up?
But can you imagine Linus doing an equivocal interview where he ducks the issue and uses "Indonesians want to use Mobile Firefox" as a justification? That was Eich's mistake which just inflamed the already brewing PR disaster.
There is a reasonable difference between "personally donating to a cause" and "donating to a candidate who votes for a cause". Not that it excuses Mr OKC from being an asshat but it is a different situation.
