

Inclusiveness at Mozilla - jallardice
https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/

======
pavpanchekha
Wait, wait, hold on. Folks, this man isn't a politician, he isn't a social
crusader, he isn't using his position as a platform. At worst, he's rich. He
hasn't taken the throne, or even government office; he's the CEO of a private
corporation that makes _web browsers_ of all things. Now, sure, he might be
against gay marriage. And you might disagree, and have a variety of principles
to back your position. But why do we demand perfection in our public figures?

Would we have the same controversy if Brendan voted Tea Party (but only
privately)? If he were against abortion? If he didn't believe NASA needed a
bigger budget (or that it did, if you lean the other way)?

Sure, gay marriage is good, people should support it, it is a valuable social
cause. I can understand your upset if you work for Mozilla, except that
Brendan has already stated several times that no policies at Mozilla would
change due to his personal views. But can we at least hold that while wrong,
being against gay rights does not immediately make you the world's most
despicable human being?

Or, if every opponent of gay rights is sub-human (a conceit that some anti-
gay-right crusaders hold in reverse), what issues exactly are similary
important? Must we raise a controversy every time a tech leader comes out pro-
NSA? Anti-immigration-reform? Pro-university education? Anti-startup? Anti-
basic-science? (Note that, just like Brendan's, these positions might have
reasoned arguments; you wouldn't know if you're too busy pillorying whomever
holds them.)

I have a few Christian friends. They are not total idiots, or oblivious to
reality; I do not suspect them of secretly trying to convert me. They are very
smart folks, who do good work, who happen to be Christian. I know a guy who
denies climate change. I don't trust his knowledge of climatology, but then
again I mostly talk to him about math, where his thoughts on climate science
are irrelevant. And he's likewise a smart guy, great to work with,
industrious, careful, and a great friend. I don't demand perfect agreement in
my friends; I won't demand it of Brendan.

~~~
danudey
Brendan went out of his way to donate a thousand dollars to prevent a group of
people from sharing the same right as everyone else.

Allowing it would have harmed no one. Not him, not them, not anyone. There are
no negative downsides, other than a subset of religious individuals who wish
to impose their strictures onto all of society feeling less in control of
their lives.

I have a hard time accepting, as a leader, someone who goes out of their way
to donate to an anti-gay campaign whose aim is to do nothing other than deny
the LGBT community something out of spite.

It's not his beliefs that are the issue; it's that he's trying to impose them
on all of society.

~~~
cturner

       > Brendan went out of his way to donate a thousand dollars
       > to prevent a group of people from sharing the same right
       > as everyone else.
    

Right? The right to have a piece of paper from a government department
endorsing the validity of your relationship with someone else? That's petty.

If you're in an alternative relationship and want to have a permanent union
with someone else, or with several other people, you can go and draw up a
contract and then get on with your lives. It could take as little as ten
minutes. Contract law is fantastic like this.

Everything substantial is already available through contract law.

    
    
       > it's that he's trying to impose them on all of society.
    

Hypocrisy. Religious types who want to mandate how other people can live are
off-key. But people who get carried away by the cause of gay marriage are
equally ridiculous. You're playing the same game as the religious types. The
missing piece of that expression of your political power enshrined in law - a
political endorsement of certain relationships.

~~~
rogerbinns
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_and_responsibilities_of...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_and_responsibilities_of_marriages_in_the_United_States)

> According to the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), there
> are 1,138 statutory provisions[1] in which marital status is a factor in
> determining benefits, rights, and privileges. These rights were a key issue
> in the debate over federal recognition of same-sex marriage.

~~~
cturner
Interesting, thanks. I'm not in the US so my context is weak. My reaction
would be to get rid of the provisions. In a free society, the government will
have no role in the bedroom. Extending it into micromanaging relationships is
a step in the wrong direction. The best code is the code we throw away.

~~~
baconner
The vast majority of rights that are bound to marriage in the us have nothing
whatsoever to do with "the bedroom" but rather practical matters like visiting
your chosen spouse in the hospital or not having your non-citizen spouse
deported or receiving benefits if your spouse is killed while serving in the
military. Another good example is the right to file taxes jointly which can
have a huge impact on your joint income. Many of these things couldn't be
covered by contract and even when they can technically be covered like
allowing someone to make end of life decisions for you it costs money which
opposite sex couples dont have to pay and contracts are frequently ignored by
people like hospital staff who don't understand the law. When your partner is
in the hospital suffering you shouldn't be stuck debating contract law with
its staff and a single status, legal marriage, makes it crystal clear to all.
While I do wish there was a code deprecation review committee in congress to
eliminate things like financially favoring married couples at tax time
practically speaking legally recognizing same sex marriage gets us much closer
to equal treatment under the law much faster than debating each of those 1000+
rights individually. People in unrecognized same sex marriages are being
actively harmed by their exclusion right now so IMO sitting around debating
the perfect solution instead of moving forward pragmatically is harmful
behavior.

~~~
cturner
OK, I'm convinced. But don't forget about that deprecation team.

~~~
baconner
Absolutely - this is why coders need to run for office more.

------
DanielStraight
Brendan Eich has now publicly committed to...

1\. Include LGBT individuals in making decisions regarding discrimination and
inclusivity.

2\. Continue health benefits for same-sex partners.

3\. Uphold anti-discrimination policies.

4\. Create new initiatives to reach out to those who feel marginalized.

5\. Support an initialize for bringing under-represented people (including
LGBT individuals) into tech.

And apparently he is committing to all these things despite holding a personal
belief that marriage should be restricted to heterosexual couples.

I admit my perspective on this may be limited due to being a white,
heterosexual male, but...

Why is having Brendan Eich's personal approval more important than having his
support? Why does it matter what he believes internally if all his external
actions are supportive?

We use products and services from numerous tech companies every day, never
even asking how their CEOs feel about LGBT issues or what actions they take to
be inclusive. But now people are upset because one of the few CEOs to make
such a strong public statement of support for LGBT issues (I can't think of
another one who has even made any statement at all) doesn't personally support
homosexual marriages? It's bizarre. Why is silence (from other CEOs) better
than a stated willingness to support people even if he disagrees with what
they are doing personally?

~~~
ebiester
It's not logical -- and none of it pretend it is.

All I can say is that when one grows up having been physically, emotionally,
verbally, and spiritually harassed for a greater part of one's life, these
little things end up bringing up the whole ball of shit.

It short circuits logic, but it's a common human trait. Some Jewish people
still won't buy Volkswagon cars, for example, and I remember hearing WWII
Veterans who wouldn't buy anything from Japan.

Pain has a long, long memory.

~~~
DanielStraight
This is an argument I can understand. Thank you.

------
lawl
I have commented on this issue before [0].

I've been thinking about this again. After reading this I think he still
stands to his opinion, that _he personally_ thinks gay marriage is wrong.
Obviously he's an idiot, but I think even idiots are entitled to their opinion
_as long as it doesn 't interfere with his work at mozilla_.

I think that is also what he's trying to say with his blog post. I think he
made it pretty clear that he does not want this to interfere with his work at
mozilla. So as long as he does not discriminate LGBT at work, _I_ think he
deserves a shot at it.

You can't force him to change his opinion. I think that is more honest than an
apology he doesn't mean.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7470134](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7470134)

~~~
GuiA
As a CEO, you live, breathe and sleep for the company. While the
personal/professional division can be easily made for an employee far down on
the org chart who does his job for 8 hours and then goes home, can the same be
done for a top level executive, let alone the CEO?

~~~
macu
This sort of question, in fact the entire uproar, presumes that Brendan Eich
is a hateful bigoted person with an agenda, or at least that he has some kind
of dangerous impulse we should worry about. Do you think his stomach turns
when he's around gay people? I don't believe it for a moment. If anything he
probably just feels afraid that someone's going to attack him and accuse him
of bigotry.

Homophobia and opposition to gay marriage are in my opinion completely
different issues, even if they involve many of the same people. We can't
automatically hold someone accountable for both.

~~~
GuiA
See my other comment in this thread that touches on this point:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7476046](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7476046)

I don't think that Brendan's stomach turns when he's around gay people or
anything like that. However, I do believe that as the CEO of an entity
(especially Mozilla), his beliefs will necessarily influence his actions; and
that the particular beliefs highlighted by this action are at odds with
Mozilla, thus making him ill-suited for a CEO role.

~~~
macu
I agree in general. So long as humans partake in decision-making, decisions
will be made according to the minds involved.

I would worry about the possible impact of Brendan's personal beliefs if I
thought that he truly has a heartfelt disdain for whole classes of people, but
as far as I can tell, he doesn't.

The question of whether to support gay marriage doesn't always reduce to
bigotry and homophobia. In Brendan's case, although no one seems to know, I
think it comes down to a _simple_ and _specific_ commitment to a traditional
idea of marriage, and it probably doesn't have the far-reaching implications
that people assume.

Of course, his donation could have been motivated by complex ideologies. In
that case, if we're going to hold people to such a high standard on the moral
checklist, then I would worry more about the things that we _don 't_ know than
the little glimpses we have into the inner lives of our leaders.

It's interesting to see where all this public discussion is going.

~~~
aestra
>traditional idea of marriage

Ok, I have a question. What exactly do these people think a traditional
marriage is? Marriage is always and has always evolved with the times,
culture, and societal norms and thinking. It wasn't until recently that we
even married for love (love marriages) or selected our own spouse. Previously,
marriages were more like a business transaction. A transfer of property from
father to husband. It used to be that a woman's family paid a bride's dowry
and we had the concept of bridewealth and coverture. In the UK, it wasn't
until the Married Women's Property Act 1870 when a married woman was allowed
to own property. Divorce was at a time uncommon, maybe even forbidden, now it
is relatively common. Very few people are even going to blink an eye at a
divorce. Even 20 years ago, people married much younger. Previously, a child
born out of wedlock was called a bastard and avoided at all cost, and had
different rights than their legitimate siblings, now close to 50% of births in
the US are born to unwed mothers. The shotgun wedding is less common. Step
families are common. Interracial marriage?? Illegal in parts of the US until
Loving vs. Virgina. (1967!!) The court case came out of Mildred Loving and
Richard Loving being sentenced to a _year_ in jail for getting married. The
original judge said in the verdict "Almighty God created the races white,
black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And
but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such
marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend
for the races to mix."

Even these traditions varied with culture, religion, time, and family. They
continue to today. Arranged marriages are common and even the norm in some
areas. Today.

There is no such thing as a traditional marriage. There never was.

~~~
bane
To be honest, most social conservatives would be _shocked_ and mortified at a
proposal to establish the forms of traditional biblical marriage that are
_actually_ in the bible.

But they will defend to the death the need to uphold the pagan Roman
tradition.

------
quesera
I think this is 95% satisfactory.

It's unreasonable to demand that someone change their mind about something
(and would you believe it if he claimed he had?), but it's imperative to be
sure that his personal opinion will not bleed into his executive function.

He knows he's outnumbered, and on the wrong side of history. But he recognizes
that he can't change himself on demand. It's the best we can hope for in an
honest person. Or, at least, it's the first step.

Vigilance, however, is warranted.

~~~
harlanlewis
Eich doesn't appear committed to his personal politics over simply getting
through the immediate PR firestorm, and as a result the Mozilla organization
may now do more to support LBGT communities than if they'd promoted someone
who didn't provoke such a strong response.

Combative and messy, but it might be what progress looks like.

~~~
Tobu
The last he said about his _personal_ politics was this:
[https://brendaneich.com/2012/04/community-and-
diversity/](https://brendaneich.com/2012/04/community-and-diversity/)

Enough people have gotten in touch about this that hopefully he'll change his
mind about marriage rights in society at large (today's post was still
specifically about Mozilla's principles), but he will probably hold on to the
fact that this topic is a private (by which people often mean religious)
matter for a while longer.

------
morley
For those of you who are as confused as I was about why he's being so
defensive about LGBT issues, here's context:

[http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/03/gay-firefox-
develope...](http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/03/gay-firefox-developers-
boycott-mozilla-to-protest-ceo-hire/)

~~~
tunesmith
Thanks, after reading the context, his statement seems rather contentless.

He may very well be committed to accepting the battles he has already lost.
But that kind of social progress is an ever-moving target, and the statement
doesn't demonstrate any willingness to keep pace.

~~~
sp332
Progress? Who gets to decide where society is going, and why is he excluded
from doing that himself?

------
lhnz
Good. This is a promise to act differently when it comes to the company.

Perhaps other in this community are right to point out that he's not actually
apologised or gone back on his own personal views, but as much as I hate to
say it, no amount of shouting and getting angry will get somebody with
homophobic viewpoints to change their mind. Generally it takes new experiences
involving very close friends or family to form a fresh world view.

This is probably the best you could expect. I personally was expecting
something far less personal and far more corporate from this but he is instead
saying that he is making a personal commitment to equality with his actions
and not just his words or HR policies. That's great.

------
thirsteh
He is sorry like the NSA is sorry you found out what they've been doing.

Brendan Eich doesn't just dislike gays getting married. He hates the concept
so much he officially donated to prevent it from being possible.

I'm sorry, but I don't sympathize with the argument that he's "entitled to his
opinions," because it's more than that. Nevermind that he's now CEO of
Mozilla.

(I personally don't care if gays can get married in the eyes of a church or
not; I care that gays are fundamentally unable to get the same benefits as
other people.)

~~~
macu
I haven't seen a single grain of evidence in support of the claim that Brendan
Eich hates gay people. He said it himself, "the donation does not in itself
constitute evidence of animosity." And I can stand behind him on that. I'm gay
and I also find the cultural crusade for gay marriage objectionable. I more go
along with the views of the Against Equality group. But since it appears that
gay marriage is going to happen regardless, there's no sense resisting it now.

~~~
smirksirlot
If he doesn't hate gay people, then why not just make his position on marriage
clear? He can straight up say "I don't believe in marriage" or whatever.

~~~
MrZongle2
"If he's not a witch, why does he deny the Church's accusations so
emphatically?"

------
bluthru
Would Mozilla appoint someone to CEO who donated $1000 towards a campaign on
banning interracial marriage? Is being against same-sex marriage ok as a
personal opinion just because we're in the transition period?

~~~
orthecreedence
> Is being against same-sex marriage ok as a personal opinion just because
> we're in the transition period?

Yes. The jury's out on gay marriage still. We all know what the verdict will
be, and people who don't support it will be carried along kicking and
screaming, but it's still ok _socially_ to oppose gay marriage.

That said, it was a stupid move on Mozilla's part. I'm sure he'll be great for
the company, but now their masthead practically reads "We hate gays!"

~~~
gcp
I'm totally fine with our masthead reading "We're understanding of dissenting
opinion, even if we believe you're really and utterly wrong". We seem to like
to do things the hard way with the press anyhow.

------
hapless
He just wanted to take an opportunity to "express [..] sorrow at having caused
pain."

Eich does not regret his actions, he's just sorry that you felt pain because
of the things he did. Classic business-ese non-apology.

~~~
slucidi
How is that not saying he's sorry he hurt people? I don't understand what you
are having a problem with.

~~~
dublinben
This is a classic non-apology apology. He's not sorry for the original action
which offended people, just that his action caused offense. It's the kind of
corporate double-speak you hear from someone who is _not_ sorry for their
actions.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-
apology_apology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-apology_apology)

~~~
gcp
A straight apology now would have been nothing short of opportunistic and
considered cheap.

Promising action to the contrary sounds a lot better.

~~~
azinman2
He never addressed the core issue which gave way to this entire blog post.

~~~
gcp
Because that one is about his _personal_ opinion, which nobody should give two
fucks about? It's what he does as CEO that matters. And from what I can see,
he's pretty much made it clear he's willing to put his personal opinion aside
for that.

------
tiles
Eich's personal stance on marriage now cannot have an impact on his role, or
he will be at heavy odds with this blog post and the public opinion of many
Mozilla works to include. He will be under scrutiny as long as he remains CEO.

Admitting a sudden change of heart would have zero effect on Mozilla. I'm not
sure what result people are expecting otherwise, but if the workplace
environment he describes in this post is satisfactory, what more can be
changed?

~~~
mef
An explanation of why he is anti-gay marriage. That would speak more about his
personal values and by extension how he will make decisions as CEO than his
commitment to Mozilla's inclusiveness policy does.

As a newly-minted CEO, his character is on trial.

~~~
waterlesscloud
"As a newly-minted CEO, his character is on trial."

LOL. We've now descended into complete ridiculousness.

------
strongsauce
I am very confused by the different signals the javascript community continues
to send about this situation compared to others. On the one hand, people
continually get shouted down for saying or doing things that are offensive or
insensitive to minority groups (and rightly so), however a lot of the same
people seem to give Eich a lot of slack and choose to consider this situation
as not a big deal.

I do not know the Eich, and I am not gay, so the only thing I can compare it
to is as someone who is Asian.

If I found out that the CEO of the company I work at was known to have donated
to a proposition that didn't want Asians to have equal rights, or even simply,
not be able to marry, I am not sure I could continue working there. Mozilla
itself as an organization seems to be very supportive of everyone regardless
of sexual orientation, race, or other preferences, so does that mean
individually I am free to support legislation that will legalize inequality?

I understand that some LGBT employees at Mozilla have written in support of
Eich, but is that fair to only take in the opinion of one person as the
opinion of the rest of the group? If someone said, "Look Jackie is Asian, and
when I do my ching-chong squinty-eye impression while wearing a conical hat,
they laugh and are OK with it" that would still not make the situation okay
despite how Jackie feels about it.

I guess I am confused, and would like to understand this situation. I'm not
really looking for blood and seeking his resignation. It seems like in this
post he is going to do what is right for the company and continue supporting
their current policies. That part is great but why was he given a free pass
before this post?

------
asdfologist
Nothing in the post indicates he's reversed his stance on prohibiting his gay
employees from marrying.

~~~
coldtea
And it's his right as a private citizen to have his own opinion on the matter.
That's why people vote, because they don't agree on all issues.

That's totally irrelevant with respect to what he'll do as a CEO. And, last
time I checked, prohibiting your employees to marry, was not in a CEO's powers
(or responsibilities).

~~~
brown9-2
And Mozilla employees, contributors, and users have the same exact _right as a
private citizen_ to be upset about Eich's personal beliefs on the matter.

The "right to have your own opinion" extends to everyone involved - pulling
this card out to defend his beliefs doesn't end any debate.

~~~
coldtea
> _And Mozilla employees, contributors, and users have the same exact right as
> a private citizen to be upset about Eich 's personal beliefs on the matter._

They should have the exact same right in the exaxt same way: as "private
citizens".

That is, not as Mozilla employees trying to oppose a CEO placement.

That they don't like his personal beliefs should in no way get in the way of
working with him -- unless he brings those to the way the company operates.

~~~
tommorris
Pretty much all the Mozilla employees I've seen on social media have been
quiet as lambs or supportive of Eich.

~~~
davidgerard
I expect this was heartening:
[http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/03/mozilla-employees-
to...](http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/03/mozilla-employees-to-brendan-
eich-step-down/)

------
smirksirlot
Expressing sorrow for causing hurt isn't the same as taking responsibility for
it.

The very first action should be an apology, but that hasn't happened and
doesn't look like it'll ever happen.

~~~
macu
There's nothing to apologize for, besides causing hurt. He's not going to
apologize for the views he holds, or for contributing to a cause he believed
in because he had the means. Even if his views have since changed, which
personally I don't find relevant, people should not be expected to apologize
for the views they once held, for the reasons they held those views are beyond
all of us to explain or denounce. Everyone is struggling to make sense of the
world, and popular opinion isn't the official stance for everyone.

------
wvenable
> I know there are concerns about my commitment to fostering equality and
> welcome for LGBT individuals at Mozilla.

This isn't right. The concern is about Brendan's fostering equality in the
_world_ , not just at Mozilla. Getting promoted just brought this 'issue' back
into the forefront again. He is also now the face of Mozilla and some people
who are concerned about equality in the world now feel differently about
Mozilla because of that.

------
jbaudanza
For comparison, this is Google's position on Prop 8:

[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/our-position-on-
calif...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/our-position-on-californias-
no-on-8.html)

The tech and open source community owes a lot to its LGBT contributors. When
their rights are being threatened, we should be the first in line to offer
support. That is why this situation is so upsetting to many of us.

------
azinman2
What's left unsaid is the reason why this was called into question at all --
his financial support of Prop 8 -- and why it shouldn't be an issue at
Mozilla. Inheriting an existing culture of openness and maintaining its status
quo is not progress nor a reversal of his position on gay marriage. If
anything the omission of any reference to it simply shows that his own
personal views haven't evolved at all -- he's just willing to put them at bay
while at Mozilla (especially when people make a stink). While that itself is
helpful to know, his inner thought process which drives any decision he makes
hasn't been addressed.

This reminds me of seeing at Google the results of an internal survey on LGBT
issues. The responses from some engineers, particularly from Russia, were so
shockingly hateful it was truly frightening. I'm not sure why engineers who
should be logic driven can become so irrationally hateful towards others who
are unlike themselves. Giving $1000 to prevent someone else from getting
married is quite a statement on his value structures.

------
GuiA
Bob becomes the CEO of a large entity, FizzBuzzCorp. In the past, FizzBuzzCorp
has been respected for its integrity, respect of its employees, and
inclusiveness.

However, it turns out that in the past, Bob supported groups that claimed that
men and women did not deserve the same rights as citizens; for example, that
women should not be able to vote, or be on a comparable pay scale.

Now appointed CEO, there is concern that Bob's views are out of line with the
company's. Bob says that there is no reason to worry, that FizzBuzzCorp will
keep paying its employees equally regardless of gender, giving them the same
benefits, etc. as it has historically done.

However, Bob does not once say that he regrets his past actions, that they
were misinformed, or anything of the sort. Bob insists that FizzBuzzCorp will
keep upholding its values; nonetheless, not once does Bob say or do anything
which may indicate that his views may have changed.

What do we make of Bob? Of FizzBuzzCorp?

~~~
macu
I think we can recognize that Bob and FizzBuzzCorp are separate entities, and
that Bob, if competent as a CEO, is also able to recognize and maintain the
distinction.

~~~
GuiA
The problem with this is that opinions have various degrees of influence on
business decisions.

If FizzBuzzCorp is in the business of building CMSs in PHP, and Bob believes
that there is nothing unethical about the diamond business, those two things
are far apart enough that you can reasonably trust Bob's opinions on the
diamond trade to not influence his decisions as a leader. Even if you think
the diamond business is the most awful thing ever, it's extremely unlikely
that that Bob's views on the matter will influence the writing of PHP
websites, and you can probably overlook it as an employee/customer/investor in
FizzBuzzCorp (unless the diamond trade is something you feel really strongly
about).

However, every company deals with human beings by nature, and implicitly takes
a role in social progress just by virtue of being a part of society.

If Bob has certain beliefs about the nature of the rights that should be
afforded to some humans but not others based on things like their gender (or
race, or sexual orientation, or other), then the probability that those
beliefs will interact with his decisions during his tenure as a leader is
pretty high.

------
DaleHarries1
If he stays as CEO then Mozilla will remain a tainted company IMHO. The last
thing an open source company wants to do is alienate vast swaths of their
contributor base.

And what happens when that base leaves? You're basically left with a bunch of
conservative, white guys (Lets be brutally honest) who hate gay people and god
knows what else. My view has always been that racists are homophobes and
homophobes think women should know their place. In a tech world trying to be
more inclusive of all these groups this will cause Mozilla huge damage.

Talk about handing the keys of the castle to your competitors! I'm sure
Facebook, Google et al will be itching to hire some good Mozilla devs!

~~~
gcp
You can say a lot of things about Mozilla, but that it's a bunch of
conservative white guys? That just shows...ignorance?

For what it's worth some gay employees spoke out about how they feel Mozilla
treats gay people, and it was pretty positive.

------
asdfologist
If he contributed $1000 to a campaign to bring back slavery, and then he
declared that Mozilla won't tolerate racial discrimination, would that make
everything OK?

------
jedanbik
I'm happy he said something. He didn't have to.

~~~
MrZongle2
Unfortunately, he _did_ have to.

Eich holds an opinion that, while apparently shared with the majority of
Californian voters (as per Prop 8 results), is deeply unpopular with segments
of the technical population.

These are some of the folks who will help promote and test Mozilla's future
releases. They are part of Mozilla's customer base. He _had_ to apologize,
because these days holding a politically incorrect opinion is unacceptable.

And as demonstrated _in this very thread_ , even his apology isn't enough for
some.

~~~
jedanbik
Why is this unfortunate? I don't understand your perspective.

~~~
MrZongle2
It is unfortunate because even though Mozilla has nothing specifically to do
with LGBT issues and Eich has not publicly opined on the subject in the
capacity of a Mozilla employee, he must now _apologize_ for having an opinion.

Let me repeat that: _Eich is apologizing for his opinion._

Not his actions as Mozilla CEO or even as an employee.

The response from some quarters to punish his deviation from what some parties
have declared "acceptable" is breathtaking. It has all the makings of
Stalinesque purge with a Web 2.0 twist. Given the subject itself and how so
recently it was considered "abnormal" and "unacceptable", I find the whole
episode tragically ironic.

I have no problem with gay marriage. But I am revulsed by the mob screaming
for blood due to Eich's _thoughtcrime_ on this matter.

~~~
jedanbik
I disagree with your core premise because a political contribution is more
than an opinion or a thought. It is an action as well as an endorsement.

------
michaelwww
All he had to say for context was "My religious beliefs guide me to hold that
marriage is between one man and one woman." A lot of decent people believe
that. I disagree and believe gay people should be able to marry as well, but I
wouldn't expect people in Eich's group to hold that against me. It's a free
country with freedom of religion and belief.

------
lukasm
Maybe he supports gay guys and don't want them to go through marriage, divorce
and all that shit.

~~~
macu
That is very generous of you ;P

------
DanBC
As a private individual he donated $X to anti-gay causes.

How much has he, as a Mozilla employee, spent on pro-gay causes?

Releasing a pink Mozilla phone that sends Y% of profit to pro-gay causes might
be a good move.

------
lotsofmangos
If he doesn't fully explain his position on why he donated to that campaign,
then he remains hard to trust.

He seems to be refusing to state his full position on the reasons behind that
donation, other than to ask people to take his word that his reasons are
reasonable, while using the fact that people are being rude as a defense not
to speak publicly on the subject, which isn't entirely reassuring.

[https://brendaneich.com/2012/04/community-and-
diversity/](https://brendaneich.com/2012/04/community-and-diversity/)

~~~
thescribe
Given the response here, I think that just makes him a rational human.

~~~
lotsofmangos
That's just the _" No explanation is required because some people have been
rude."_ line of argument I was commenting about though. Iterating it doesn't
particularly convince me.

------
ebbv
This is all nice but I'm still not supporting Mozilla. Brendan's views are
akin to him being against interracial marriage to me. Would we give him a pass
if he said "We'll hire African Americans and extend benefits to them, I just
personally think of them as sub-human."? Obviously not.

Brendan needs to join the 21st century.

~~~
gcp
Feel free to think Brendan as a shithead, just don't think of the other
900-plus people in Mozilla as shitheads unless Brendan starts doing totally
unreasonable things and we go along with it. Thanks.

------
AdrianRossouw
i'm really not one of those baying for his head, but didn't that just kind of
read like 'but some of my best friends are black!'?

~~~
Argorak
To be fair, he explicitly asks for being held accountable on those grounds.
That, you usually don't do if you are just talking about your "best black
friends".

------
jackmaney
This is not even close to good enough.

I will continue to refuse to use Firefox out of general principle.

~~~
davexunit
How about Iceweasel or GNU Icecat? It's free software, man. You have your
anger focused on the wrong things.

~~~
jackmaney
[shrug] I guess I could use either of those, but Chrome suits me fine, thanks.

~~~
davexunit
Chrome is immensely worse because it is proprietary and has spyware included.

------
bane
"My ongoing commitment to our Community Participation Guidelines, our
inclusive health benefits, our anti-discrimination policies, and the spirit
that underlies all of these."

"...and in the meantime express my sorrow at having caused pain."

Ouch, how can somebody hold two opposing thoughts in their head at once?
That's basically a denouncement of his own personal efforts.

At this point, the best thing he can do to level set things, is to make some
equal and public donations to same-sex marriage causes.

It sucks when your actions have consequences...especially when those
consequences hurt other people.

"At the same time, I don’t ask for trust free of context, or without a solid
structure to support accountability. No leader or person who has a privileged
position should. I want to be held accountable for what I do as CEO. "

And that's exactly what's happening. I hope he keeps getting held accountable
for participating in the oppression of a minority group until he takes
substantive steps to make public amends.

~~~
gcp
_I hope he keeps getting held accountable for participating in the oppression
of a minority group until he takes substantive steps to make public amends._

Didn't he just do that, by promising contrary action rather than a cheap
apology?

~~~
bane
"by promising contrary action rather than a cheap apology?"

We'll see. Promises are easily broken, especially when you don't think the
subject of the promise is important.

