
Standing strong and staying Mozillian - whalesalad
http://www.bitstampede.com/2014/04/06/standing-strong-and-staying-mozillian/
======
bowlofpetunias
The apologists just keep repeating the same argument: that what Eich did was
merely expressing a personal view, whilst those opposing his appointment as
CEO were a mob on a witch hunt.

The reality is that Eich as a supporter of Prop 8 was part of a mob on a witch
hunt, one with considerably greater consequences than a CEO resigning from his
job. The job of one man doesn't even begin to compare to the civil rights of
so many.

The continued portrayal of Eich as the victim instead of the aggressor bothers
me a lot.

To paint Eich as a good guy and those who opposed him as some evil misinformed
opportunistic lynch mob is a complete reversal of reality.

Prop 8 supporters are the lynch mob, and Eich was one of them. Calling for him
to step down is a relatively mild response to that.

~~~
vacri
This being said, it _really_ bothers me that OKC and others _did not clean up
after themselves_. Battle won, they just fucked off. No encompassing
announcement of "Hey, use Mozilla again, boycott over". They got what they
want, Mozilla is once again pure in the diversity stakes, but they didn't
bother to clear the bad air. They've basically left the bad taste of the
virulent boycott hanging around _despite getting exactly the change they
wanted_.

So yes, it was a witch hunt - they only cared about destroying Eich, not
strengthening Mozilla, and were happy to damage their Mozillan allies (that
they purported to be defending) in the process.

Besides, it's possible (and common) for both sides in an argument to be wrong.

~~~
ballard
Yeah I think your interpretation is fair. Taking a leadership stance takes on
a higher level of responsibility to do the right thing and be just, and to
appear to do that.

------
Udo

      I had been quite certain that Jay Sullivan would become
      our permanent CEO, after a long and successful “interim 
      CEO” run
    

You're not the only one. Everybody keeps forgetting to point the finger at the
real culprit: the Mozilla board.

There is certainly enough blame to go around elsewhere, like rabid reactions
from all sides, the original unethical deed (contrary to the common
simplifications it's not about his beliefs per se, it's about the act of
enabling legislation that denies basic rights to a minority).

None of these casually-identified factors are really at fault for what
happened. Let's shift criticism to where it belongs: the Mozilla board elected
someone into the chief public messaging position who seems to be prone to
behavior that is fundamentally at odds with Mozilla's core message. In doing
so they provoked a very foreseeable public outcry and a series of highly
emotional responses which ultimately ended up taking down an excellent
technologist and by all accounts likeable fellow human.

Everybody has flaws, sometimes they're even crippling flaws. If we mandate
every high-profile CEO appointment should be reserved for completely flawless
people the result will simply be that from now on only liars get appointed.
However, at the same time, a board of directors must display a minimum of
rational judgement and refrain from appointing people who unfortunately have
flaws that prevent them from doing their job.

I feel sorry for what happened to Mr Eich. It's difficult to even imagine how
absolutely disappointed and rejected he must feel. I sincerely believe he was
looking forward to taking care of things that really mattered. Unfortunately,
this was never in the cards. The board set him up for this experience when
they should have protected him.

~~~
lern_too_spel
Sure, the board shouldn't have made him CEO in the first place, but Eich could
have just admitted that what he did was wrong and fixed the whole disaster
with just a single statement. The fact that he couldn't caused many
progressive people to distance themselves from the organization. Since Mozilla
draws most of its contributors from that population, that would cause more
damage to Mozilla than anything Eich could overcome with his leadership.

~~~
Udo
_> but Eich could have just admitted that what he did was wrong_

While that may have "fixed" the issue, you have to admire him for not taking
the easy route and telling this lie.

~~~
bsimpson
I'm so tired of reading "I didn't want him to resign; just to lie and say he
thinks he was wrong."

~~~
hamax
I don't care what Mozilla's CEO thinks, I care what the public thinks he
thinks. Public figures with openly homophobic views are much more dangerous
than a random homophobic grandpa because they signal to the public that there
is nothing wrong with it.

"Fake it til you make it" works because most prejudices are kept alive because
of conformation bias and herd mentality.

~~~
ballard
It signals the approach that will be taken with dev and user relations, and
personnel issues.

~~~
hamax
I agree. I should have said that I care less not that I don't care.

------
alrs
Cached:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:v794NTc...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:v794NTcNKCEJ:www.bitstampede.com/2014/04/06/standing-
strong-and-staying-mozillian/&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1)

------
Osmose
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.

~~~
rjzzleep
> 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:

[https://medium.com/p/7645a4bf8a2](https://medium.com/p/7645a4bf8a2)

edit: there are some other highlights from that article which i removed from
my post to avoid common dissent.

~~~
sentenza
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?

FreeBSD? Exim? Postgresql? The Linux Kernel?

~~~
Mikeb85
No kidding. Linus Torvalds probably has plenty of personal views that are
boycott-worthy for the rampaging internet mob...

~~~
zimpenfish
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.

~~~
Mikeb85
I can imagine him flipping the bird and saying fuck you to his haters. In fact
that's what I'd expect. And that's why we love him...

------
roeme
I don't like the whole affair, and in my opinion, while the discussion
might've been appropriate, the turnout is disappointing. And it's been said in
here; most actors in this affair didn't act very mature.

But what bothers me the most is this: [http://uncrunched.com/2014/04/06/the-
hypocrisy-of-sam-yagan-...](http://uncrunched.com/2014/04/06/the-hypocrisy-of-
sam-yagan-okcupid/)

(TLDR; Co-Founder of OKC donated to far-right republican opposing gay rights
and trying to make abortion illegal; among various other stuff).

Assuming that such a harsh action (displaying a message to users with a
particular browser and urging them to change) must've been OK'ed at quite a
high level, it's not far-fetched to say that somebody is/was quite the
hypocrite here.

~~~
lern_too_spel
That is not at all the same. Saying that Yagan supports oppressing gays
because he donated to Cannon is like saying most of us support the PATRIOT Act
because we voted for Obama. Eich donated to a campaign whose sole purpose was
to take existing rights away from gays in California.

~~~
roeme
It might not be 100% the same, but it's also not completely different. You
don't get to pick; if Yagan honestly was against gay discrimination, he
shouldn't have supported Cannon. Especially since by 2004, the year of his
donation, it was already evident that Cannon was against gay rights.

 _But this is not what I 'm trying to say at all._ Merely that: If OKC wanted
to speak out against Eich, they should've done sone in a mature and careful
way - it's what a decent person (be it legal or nature) needs to do anyway,
and even more so since rarely one is without fault.

~~~
lern_too_spel
As bad as Cannon looks, the far right supported his opponent.
[http://michellemalkin.com/2008/06/25/shamnesty-republican-
ch...](http://michellemalkin.com/2008/06/25/shamnesty-republican-chris-cannon-
defeated-in-utah-primary/) and
[http://www.americanpatrol.com/REFERENCE/CANNON-
WATCH/040617....](http://www.americanpatrol.com/REFERENCE/CANNON-
WATCH/040617.html)

I'm willing to bet Yagan felt he donated to the lesser evil in this case, but
I'm still interested in hearing his official response.

------
bsder
Look, he doesn't deserve to be CEO.

Why?

Because he and the PR folks at Mozilla screwed this up so badly.

This reaction was bloody obvious. The PR machine should have been smoothing
this transition and been ready for the backlash. They _already_ had a big
kerfuffle about his Prop 8 donation years ago.

Not only should Eich be leaving, but anyone in charge of PR at Mozilla should
be fired, as well.

~~~
ballard
I've worked some politically-sensitive .edu and .com, it looks more like it
was a setup to get him out of the org.

No one works those kind of places without having sharpened their Machevelli
playbook.

Clearly he failed at that and so should be out on that basis alone,
irregardless of appearing to hate the LGBTQ community.

~~~
bsder
This actually bubbled up into my brain as well, but I just put it off as my
political paranoia being overly active.

Given that nobody really anticipated Eich being put into the CEO clot, I
wonder if some big battle happened in the background. So, the board said
"Fine, here's your shot. Enjoy." and dropped him into the soup to let him
sink.

------
HarrietJones
[http://uncrunched.com/2014/04/06/the-hypocrisy-of-sam-
yagan-...](http://uncrunched.com/2014/04/06/the-hypocrisy-of-sam-yagan-
okcupid/)

------
yeukhon
This new CEO search will be very difficult as all candidates will have to go
through a very detailed screening processing (well a good search should
require that anyway). In particular, anyone who lives in CA and has voted
someone who is not in favor of gay will be tossed out right away.

Any company that jumps into a heated controversy like this is not acting
heroic. Their actions are merely to strengthen the heat. It may appear that
OkCupid is really just after that PR stun given how the CEO may have been
against LGBT community by voting someone who is against LGBT. One might defend
OkCupid's CEO by saying "well maybe he was voting him for some of the
candidate's agenda, not the entire agenda. After all, no congressman has
perfect agenda that everyone likes. You either choose someone you totally
disagree with or someone you partially disagree with, or someone you think is
actually helping and caring about people."

When we reflect, doesn't that make this whole crisis really stupid and ugly
given how we elect people into office based on partial agreement? How Eich is
helpful, friendly to his colleagues at Mozilla and outside of Mozilla and yet
he is still not the right choice to lead Mozilla.

After all, Mozilla's mission IS ABOUT allowing every community to be able to
express itself to the whole Internet. How do we do that? By building a browser
which people can trust by verifying the source code. By building websites and
tools which allow people to share opinions freely. By teaching people how to
make use of technology to share opinions.

Choosing Eich might have been a really bad choice now that we reflect on
history. CEO search will continue and will require triple efforts. Great
lesson for all future CEO search. Yet, Mozilla has to take a lot of losses
which is unfortunate.

I don't like OkCupid. What they did was truly amazingly reckless to me. You
can disagree with me all you want. But it is. If you are going to boycott
Mozilla over this LGBT issue, where was your boycott when we found out about
NSA? Where were you OkCupid when we heard about Russian's ban on gay when the
Winter Olympics was happening? There is so many worth causes for a service
owner to display a boycott message to its users. Dying children and poor labor
in the world. But most don't do that. Why? Neutrality for a neutral service is
the right thing to do. Now all the sudden ganging up on Mozilla is fishy to
me, OkCupid.

~~~
zimpenfish
"Russian's ban on gay" doesn't exist. Sochi, for example, has many gay clubs.
The Russians passed "you can't promote homosexuality to juveniles" which is
very different.

~~~
yeukhon
Restricting "pro-gay 'propaganda'" is a form of banning gays.

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2553704/Google-
takes...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2553704/Google-takes-stand-
Russias-anti-gay-law-rainbow-coloured-Sochi-doodle-statement-calling-equal-
rights.html)

So where was OkCupid when this happened? obviously they didn't care.

~~~
zimpenfish
It's not even close to "banning gays". It's a restriction, sure, and it's a
stupid dumb one that many countries have or have tried in the past but Russia
isn't "banning gays" at all.

