Just because Mozilla started Firefox, does not mean we can't question it. I have felt for a while that Mozilla isn't totally aligned with its user's interests.
For example: finding and deleting tracking cookies is still laborious in Firefox. You have to select domains one by one, hitting "Remove selected" each time. Why can't you select multiple domains at once and nuke them?
Why can't it tell you which tab is using up CPU resources, so you can close it? And in "private browsing" mode: why are cookies still carried over? That's not so "private", is it??
The whole FirefoxOS thing sounded just like a solution looking for a problem. I have been in situations (Govt grants) where the grantees have too much money and will just throw it at random proposals which have no hope of working. This sounded just like that.
Since they have so much money to burn, why don't they support worthwhile OSS efforts (like SSL, for example)? There are tons of little tools and libraries that we use in *nix land, that could benefit from some $$. Mozilla should offer "Mozilla fellowships" or "Mozilla sabbaticals", where they support a developer for a year or two fulltime to work on their projects.
Most of Mozilla's work is done by volunteers anyways. Why should the execs get paid so much?
Since they have so much money to burn, why don't they support worthwhile OSS efforts (like SSL, for example)?
The NSS library is supported by Mozilla and Red Hat, mostly.
There are tons of little tools and libraries that we use in *nix land, that could benefit from some $$.
Mozilla is much more than just Firefox, Firefox OS and Thunderbird. Take a look at the hundreds of projects on https://github.com/mozilla/, for example.
Mozilla should offer "Mozilla fellowships" or "Mozilla sabbaticals", where they support a developer for a year or two fulltime to work on their projects.
> ... why don't they support worthwhile OSS efforts ...
They do:
"Mozilla Open Source Support (MOSS) is an awards program specifically focused on supporting the Open Source and Free Software movement, with an initial allocation of USD $1 million."
All your other points have been answered, but just to add that Mozilla does offer fellowships, they are very generous and they are consistently scaling up the program. It currently covers open web technologies, journalism, and science.
I think there's also a bit of confusion about what Mozilla do. The Mozilla corporation make firefox. The Mozilla Foundation that owns the corporation steward the open web, and help make open (source/access/data) the default mode of working for organisations that affect access to knowledge and technology. They are not about serving programmers with cool technology. They are absolutely about making people feel welcome and engaged in building the web.
When Mozilla announced Firefox OS, some management factions pushed to cut Firefox to a skeleton crew and go "all in" on Firefox OS. Even though Firefox still had 30% market share and Chrome only 20%, they were ready to give up the desktop. Thankfully that didn't happen because others knew Firefox "kept the lights on." Imagine a Mozilla without Firefox OS, where the hundreds of engineer-years and hundreds of millions of dollars poured into Firefox OS had instead been invested in Servo and e10s/multiprocess Firefox..
And Brave makes me sad. No disrespect to Brendan and his team! Kudos to them for building an opinionated product that excites people. But many of Brave's praised features are things Mozilla considered but dropped due to fear of publisher retaliation or lack of focus. Things like:
* Tracking protection in non-private browsing mode
* Blocking third-party cookies from unvisited domains
* HTTPS Everywhere integration
* Partitioned user sessions
* Promoting alternatives to toxic web advertising
* Some sort of micropayment system
* One-click Tor or secure VPN browsing
[Disclaimer: I am a Mozilla employee, but these are my own opinions.]
It is easy to blame Fireofx OS now for the waste, but 4 years ago it was not that easy to see that it would be a total disaster. It was just things that Mozilla was betting on did not come through.
The real problem for me is why Firefox OS was not stopped 2 years ago when trends became clear. That is inexcusable given the amount of efforts Mozilla continued to spend on it.
4 years ago boot-to-gecko was still at the rather early stage and it was not possible to see how it would end. Given the need to diversify for Mozilla it was reasonable to proceed to get at least one shipping device. Even 3 years ago with the first phone release one could argue that continuing with the project was not totally unreasonable. But 2 years ago the market message was crystal clear.
Chris totally nailed it. The world doesn't turn out to need another version of Android made out of HTML, CSS, and JS, and could have spent many of those resources making the browser engine the world does need for a gazillion-core CPU+GPU future (Servo). Many good intentions and naively believing a word that operators or OEMs say are only some of the reasons why.
And Brave makes me sad, too, for lots of reasons.
Disclaimer: Former Mozilla employee, but love the people still.
> And Brave makes me sad, too, for lots of reasons
I'm interested. Here, email, DM on Twitter, whatever you prefer.
Update: I took Chris to be saying Brave makes him sad about Mozilla fearing backlash and lacking focus. Maybe I misread, but the way we propose to pay publishers with Brave could one day become a web standard. No fear. And focus matters, obviously at a startup but definitely at a bigger outfit facing giant sized competition.
Yeah, I meant sad for Mozilla. The excitement and praise for Brave could have been Firefox's if Mozilla hadn't become so timid. Maybe I'm just jealous.. :)
> Mozilla has quickly been identified by a few as a way to make a quick buck
This is always, always so fascinating to me, to see how many people will never ever consider this, at least in public.
There's this most basic of basic incentives, money, a huge pile of money sitting around, and everybody piously pretends it doesn't matter to everybody who's in control of it.
Exactly! Why are Mitchell Baker and other execs at Mozilla being rewarded for lack-luster performance with nearly $1 million a year in compensation, meanwhile the actual programmers that toil on Mozilla's products go underpaid or even unpaid?
I won't comment on whether I felt I was underpaid in my years at Mozilla (though I'll say I do make more now, at a for-profit company), but it is at least worth pointing out that Mozilla's bonus system extended to everyone. And until early 2015 it was based on company-wide performance, so even if you had a project that was languishing you could still get a good bonus if the company as a whole was doing well (in 2015 it switched to a significant chunk being based on individual performance and metrics, and I wasn't there long enough afterward to have a worthwhile opinion on how that change turned out).
> though I'll say I do make more now, at a for-profit company
That's what I meant by underpaid. It's well known that Mozilla pays below-market rate salaries. Instead it deceptively uses its supposed non-profit status (actually a for-profit owned by a non-profit shell) to motivate people to take a pay-cut by working there, meanwhile Baker and a handful of others at the top are getting rich (even by Bay Area standards) off their under-compensated, altruistically-minded labor.
Google for a long time has operated / operates in much the same way. Huge pile of adsense money, think of the best way to persuade others to waste it all on whatever insane idea you have.
After reading this I wondered what accountability measures are in place for board members of the Mozilla Foundation.
Many non-profits have elections for board positions where members of the organization or its community can help determine board membership and vote out bad directors. Mozilla Foundation's by-laws (http://static.mozilla.com/foundation/documents/mf-bylaws.pdf) states "This Foundation shall have no members" (Article II).
Existing directors are the only ones who can vote in board elections. They are only accountable to themselves.
Mozilla Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Foundation, meaning all voting shares are controlled by the Foundation's board.
I find this to generally be a dangerous structure for a non-profit to have. Think twice about donating to any charity where the directors are well compensated and accountable to no one.
If the board is stubborn there is nothing anyone can do to force them out. Hopefully with pressure the community can achieve some reforms. One I would push for immediately is adopting new by-laws that allow community involvement in board elections.
The funny thing is that for at least some for-profits it is not a horrible idea, with no shareholders to worry about. I already mentioned the telecoms as an example in another comment.
An aside: Mozilla's approach to Firefox extensions is both 1) responsible (they require extensions to be reviewed and signed by Mozilla), 2) untenable for developers (mine took forever to be reviewed).
I published three Chrome extensions last year, and decided to port my more ambitious one to Firefox. (all at http://www.metafruit.com) Now I feel somewhat bad for complaining since I'm not an extension reviewer myself, and I feel they've taken on a tall order for the betterment of their community. But my Firefox port took four months to get to the front of the review process. Needless to say, my next extension is targeted only for Chrome.
Chrome's approach is easy for developers but almost reckless for end users.
Oh excellent! I missed this announcement; I won't be afraid to do it again. Looking at those charts, looks like I rode through the most extreme backlog you guys experienced.
Another aside: At least for extensions featured in a store, it makes sense to me to have a vetting process. Also, I believe that anyone should be able to read, unminified, the code they run on their computers if they so wish. (Especially if the software gets to view/change the content of the pages they visit.) So, I appreciate the general rule in Moz's review process against minified code and large unknown libraries.
It's completely absurd that an open source project has taken it upon themselves to mandate extension signing. It's as if Debian declared that you couldn't install packages which weren't signed by them, but don't worry, you can always recompile Debian yourself with that feature turned off.
How does one protect the majority of users in the wide open case? For example see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1251911 where the extension downloaded another extension and disabled the signing pref.
Seriously. I have a private extension that I wrote and gave up on getting reviewed because the process is painful, and now I can't run it on Firefox. They've successfully pushed me to the less stable nightly release. It's only a matter of time before some bug gets me off Firefox entirely, and it's back to the bad old pre-firefox days.
I have no problem with a Linux distro doing this. Though I'd consider several to already be doing this - any distro you cannot click to install through a GUI a package archive with I'd call blocking casual users from installing non-official software. Though most distros (I know at least Ubuntu / Suse enable this) let you just click package archives to install them.
It probably won't affect the review process, but it will at least make targeting both browsers from a dev perspective potentially (hopefully!) trivial.
Since I'm not dependent on XUL-type apis, this is very relevant! The porting process was already not-bad, but anything to smooth it over for others would be cool. Thanks, i'll see where it is when I start my next project!
>Mr Eich is now making the Brave web browser (based on Webkit by the way) which is arguably one of the most promising new browsers right now. Go figure.
Right about here my confidence in the veracity of this guy's claims plummeted. Brave offers nothing existing browsers can't already provide, except of course a diversion of ad revenue directly into Eich's pocket.
Brave has not even started ad replacement, we will bring up micropayments first. When the ad revenue flows, with NI-ZKP based anonymous confirmation of ad impressions, we will share 55% directly with publishers according to user traffic and impressions. We give 15% to users, which by default will auto micropay for their top sites to be ad-free. We take the same share, 15%. Our partner in privacy-preserving ad matching, Sonobi, makes 15%.
To say that our aggregate 70% revenue share to websites goes "directly into Eich's pocket" is either to say something you guessed wrong about, in which case read our site docs and watch our GitHub; or it is a lie.
Ads may decline in favor of paywalls but I doubt they will go away. And we are building, and bootstrap-funding via the 15% revshare, user wallets into Brave, with anonymity. If paying for web content does take off at the expense of ads, Brave is in pole position with our micropayments system to lead and win this race.
I'm well aware your business strategy's oriented contrary to the advice, but Nick Szabo and Clay Shirky's arguments against micropayments are very solid and should be considered.
I'd suggest looking at a payment aggregating rather than disaggregating system. It's the direction publishing's been headed for about 400 years.
Of course, you might just be the exception as proves the rule. But I doubt it.
We aggregate payments to publishers. I recommend you read just the material at https://brave.com/ including the FAQ and blog posts.
We strive to remove all cognitive overhead rightly decried in explicit micropayment systems. Users get a 15% revshare by default. It is used to auto-micropay their top 20 sites up to low monthly maximum or user wallet balance, whichever is smaller -- again by default. (All parameters will be adjustable, but the defaults will be tuned to drain the wallet each month unless the user intervenes.)
Users get notified in time to revoke any micropayments they don't want to make, but otherwise they don't have to think or intervene.
Your first sentence is oddly phrased, never mind pretentious and wrong. Did you give me "advice" that I ignored? I think the shoe is on the other foot.
Thanks for the response. I'm looking over Brave's pages.
A monthly cap actually makes some sense. I'm strongly partial to the knowledge as a public good argument, and would see it paid out of some sort of a general fund somehow, though getting from here (piecemeal / advertising / gratis / occasional subscriptions) to there (centralised revenues collection, some sort of content rating / pricing differential, use-tracking for author/artist compensation) seems difficult.
Amazon are doing something vaguely interesting with an all-you-can-eat monthly subscription concept. I believe O'Reilly's Safari operates similarly.
My introductory paragraph was meant to convey that I thought I'd be suggesting something probably not entirely welcome as it goes rather against the concept I'd understood Brave was based about. It apparently did so poorly, and I may be wrong, I often am.
I'd commented in an earlier HN thread where Brave was announced, though suspect you hadn't seen that. I've written a bit on content syndication and issues of information goods and market economics (they play poorly) at https://dredmorbius.reddit.com/
I'm not active in the space though I've given it a lot of thought over the past few decades.
Nothing existing browsers could provide, but also something existing browsers do not provide... a way to block ads without short changing content creators.
For those unfamiliar with Brave, I can recommend this interview:
except of course a diversion of ad revenue directly into Eich's pocket.
And in there lies some of the problems, a Mozilla exec creates a new project that overlaps with Mozilla's star product. Whether Brave is good or bad is irrelevant.
He's not a Mozilla exec. He got shamed out of his job for having had donated money to a group that was against same-sex marriage.
Basically, all people who hold Christian values don't deserve to have a job.
Interestingly the conservative evangelical position on homosexuality is more or less "it's OK to have those feelings so long as you never act on them". So telling someone who holds that belief "it's OK to believe that as long as you never act on it" does have the virtue of asking them to first live up to the standard they seek to legally impose on others.
There's a difference between holding christian values and acting on them. I have many religious friends in many wide and varied religions from all over the earth, and they're all great people, because the only time they'll ever even talk (nevermind act) about their religion is when you ask them to.
Never saw that site before today. Careful with "stolen", you will cut yourself with Hanlon's razor.
I also do not see any sentences in common. Brave aims to pay publishers better than the ads we replace would have paid them. No sign of that from what I read just now at i2.si. Did I miss it?
I havn't seen press-releases, but their websites looks completely different and saying somebody stole something is serious accusation.
Same way as IE stolen Netscape Navigator, FF stolen IE, CH stolen FF? You can't steal idea. "Payment integrated in webbrowser" is not patentable (or I hope it's not).
I'm much more on board with the comment this one is replying to:
"""
...
On top of that, do you guys honestly think that Firefox would not have slid down the same slope, given that it suddenly had Google, Apple, and Microsoft to compete with, some of whom effectively prevent Firefox from even running on their mobile platforms? It's like I'm living in a bizarro world sometimes when I consider that Slashdot fancies itself as informed tech geeks/nerds, and they don't seem to have any idea what they're ranting about anymore.
"""
"""
Sigh. Does anyone on Slashdot even know what Mozilla is doing anymore, or do they just actively seek anything minor they can to twist into pathetic negative rants? They've clearly already shifted their focus back onto Firefox lately, but apparently you haven't noticed. Apparently all you've seen is "hype", while selectively ignoring everything else.
"""
for there being "no incentive", Mozilla dev seems extremely focused on fixing these problems
I'm disinclined to just take someone's word on the internet that it's "clear" that Mozilla is "extremely focused". OP has more inner structure, a coherent theory of why lack of focus may arise. So it feels more compelling. Then again, I have personal complaints that I've aired elsewhere on this thread, so I might be biased.
I recommend forner Firefox users to take a look at Vivaldi. Its only downside is that it further boosts Chrome's dominance by being based on Chromium. On the other hand, Chromium is a damn fine, standards-compliant renderer.
Anyway, I have really enjoyed Vivaldi's user-first view, like Opera before it also got too much of a Chrome envy. There are browser settings galore and a generally customization-positive view by the developers and you can feel how it oozes "classic Opera" mentality.
Also, they do none of those Firefox shenanigans as of late with bundld third party software or ads. They are simply focusing on becoming the best choice for a power user.
>Its only downside is that it further boosts Chrome's dominance
It's other disadvantage is that it's proprietary software. Rather than disagreeing with this from a security point of view (which is valid), I'm going to say that I don't like using software that I can't look at if I get curious as to how it works.
I've looked at the code for Firefox to see how certain things were done that fascinated me. I can't do that with Vivaldi.
Problem is no other browsers has anything close to the ecosystem of Firefox.
Chrome extensions seems (with a few exceptions) to be just locally stored web sites.
A better alternative to Firefox might be Palemoon which is just an older version of Firefox with security patches. I am not in a position to judge if it is safe enough for anyone to use but I like it.
Palemoon is not a viable alternative; Firefox and Mozilla, with all of their resources have failed to ship a fix for the most security relevant feature in the browser - a sandbox (it's coming, finally). Palemoon has eschewed the advanced necessary to get the Firefox codebase into condition to support a sandbox.
Beyond that, unless something has changed, Palemoon doesn't have anything that resembles a security program, other than taking up security bugs from Mozilla that are likely increasingly less relevant as the code bases diverge.
After uninstalling Firefox I did look at Vivaldi, but went with Maxthon: http://maxthon.com. It's available for Linux and all major platforms. Fast too.
I'm the reporter there. Same user on Firefox (natch) doesn't cause the same errors. I also don't see those errors from any other browser. It's always Maxthon.
tl;dr: Mozilla is clearly failing as an organization, its programmers are underpaid, and its flagship product continues to shake down its users for donations, meanwhile its executives still get paid upwards of $800k a year for their mismanagement.
I am happy with firefox performance, using vimperator. When you remove all the UI it is one good browser. Big problem with potential decline is that I don't know of any substitute for ff+vimperator (or pentadactyl) that works half good as they do. I tried just about any browser + vimsomething combo.
Non-profits are mission driven. Most people who work for non-profits are doing it at least in part because of belief in the mission (especially since non-profits typically pay less than market rate).
The problem with technology non-profits is that the world around them changes pretty rapidly, and with substantial discontinuities.
So if you're an employee and you've signed on to an org with an understanding of why your job and your project matters for The Mission, of course change can appear scary and confusing.
On the other hand, especially when there is rapid turn over, or the ground keeps shifting under the org, there's a strong incentive by execs to try and find new territory one can set up upon.
The tensions seem pretty obvious. This is the same issue that's come up with Wikipedia's search project too.
Nobody works for Mozilla Foundation. The employees work for Mozilla Corporation, a taxable / for profit entity entirely owned by Mozilla Foundation. They have precisely one revenue stream worth mentioning: search bar contracts. Those contracts are bid on by for profit companies, who will be bidding based on perceived value per search, searches per user, and total users.
The introduction of Chrome should concern Mozilla Corp employees, and the ceding of market share to it should be terrifying. Your capacity for The Mission is diminished if user base declines, because bids will decline.
How should a non-profit like Mozilla gauge it's success? Should it be going after browser market share (Firefox)? Developer brain market share (Rust, MDN)? Leadership positions (W3C)? Advocacy?
I think it should be in terms of how well they are achieving their mission. Which is kind of open ended and varies over time. But can be summed up as keep the Web open and unrestricted.
Their success can therefore be determined by how well they fight against things like:
* monoculture of browser's/engine's (Internet Explorer, Webkit)
* The use of vendor specific standards on web (ActiveX, NaCl, Flash Player)
* The introduction and proliferation of non-open standards on the web. (H.264, HVEC, Widevine, Primetime, FairPlay, PlayReady)
* The centralization of content and services onto a few dominant websites (Google, Facebook, YouTube)
Good question, but I think market share is what buys you access to 'leadership positions' and enables 'advocacy'. If Firefox has 1% market-share, nobody cares what Mozilla says or does.
Firefox has lost a lot of market share to Chrome (something like 30% vs. 14%). Internet Explorer has too. Considering Google only launched a browser in '08, it's pretty impressive they're at something like 50%.
Mozilla is still doing a lot of awesome stuff (web assembly, rust, servo, etc...), and I personally still choose Firefox over Chromium. As a user, I do have complaints about the direction on a number of things though.
One of the simpler things I'm surprised I haven't seen yet is a decent native text editor, considering how much relies on editing text in a browser.
It's not easy to get people to use something new. It's even harder to get a majority of people to use something new. If you consider that Microsoft has nearly the same magnitude resources, and their own widely deployed platform their browser is pre-installed on, it doesn't seem like a trivial accomplishment.
Firefox also had a bigger market share than Microsoft.
Something simple (like markdown) that can be implemented in a wide range of languages (not only system languages).
The complex web we have today is a dead end. It monopolizes too much ressources in few complex projects.
We need a lot of different projects trying to achieve different goals. Some can be specialized (like only for a site or a task). Some can be whole-purpose.
Reminds me of that quote about "A players hiring A players, but B players hiring C players" or Jobs' rants on the subject re Scully.
For the record, I hate the latest UI changes to Firefox, I have chromium installed also and use it when needed. I don't need two of them. The big round tabs, the Fischer-price menus, the prefs with hardcoded white backgrounds, etc. If they hadn't fixed the memory leaks recently I'd go back to FF 20 or so.
Mozilla has pissed away its market share, its community, its goodwill and its influence in the world because of a series of bad decisions over the last 5 years:
* banning unsigned add-ons and annoucing a new add-on development API that breaks existing add-ons [Firefox 42 will not allow unsigned extensions (mozilla.org) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10038999]
* forcing Pocket and Hello icons to appear on the toolbar with every update [Firefox Bugzilla: Remove Pocket Integration (mozilla.org) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9667809]
* neglecting browser performance, multi-process architecture and browser security. This year, the Pwn2Own contest refused to consider Firefox security hacks because the organizers "wanted to focus on the browsers that have made serious security improvements in the last year." http://it.slashdot.org/story/16/02/12/034206/pwn2own-2016-wo...
All these changes were dropped on the community without any prior warning, discussion or input. Firefox add-on developers responded to many of these changes by developing workarounds like Pale Moon, Classic Theme Restorer, The Addon Bar (Restored), etc. but by now many of them have burnt out. The burden of fixing Mozilla's mistakes is just too heavy. [The likely end of DownThemAll (downthemall.net) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10099240]
Many of these decisions came out of "Google envy":
* the drive to mimic Chrome instead of doubling down on what makes Firefox unique
* the transformation in compny culture from a scrappy open source project to a bloated corporate hierarchy that enforces a fear-based workplace
* empire building via a massive hiring spree (or, as Steve Jobs so memorably put it, a "bozo explosion")
* the adoption of whiteboard-style interviews to hire employees off the street instead of considering long-time community members
* the leasing of expensive offices in hipster locations like San Francisco instead of encouraging remote work which is ingrained in the company culture
* chasing the latest buzzwords like mobile operating systems and IoT projects and spinning off core products like Thunderbird and Firefox OS as "community projects". (What's next? Autonomous cars?)
Firefox markets share is already 8% and falling. Once Yahoo vaporizes, it will take Mozilla down with it. I'm looking forward to once again seeing a lean organization with a laser focus on making the best browser, period.
>* denying vehemently for months that there is no financial arrangement with Pocket and then casually admitting it in a Wired interview on other topics
There was a time when Google use to pay site owners for firefox downloads. The day they launched Chrome, the sam day promotion stopped. Since then the usage for FF is going downhill.
I wonder if a for-profit corporation with zero shareholders similar to Mozilla can be made possible. I wonder what would happen if AT&T and Verizon can be run in a similar way (with better executives of course).
> I wonder if a for profit corporation with zero shareholders can be made possible. I wonder what would happen if AT&T and Verizon can be run in a similar way (with better executives of course).
A mutual company is probably the closest thing you'll find to that (basically a company where you become a shareholder when you become a customer). I'm not sure how well that structure would work for a company like Mozilla, which has a weak relationship to its "customers," but I think it's work a short for large utility-like organizations like telcom companies.
That is not what I mean. Obviously such a corporation would have a board of directors but no shareholders at all (including no dividends and control rights), just like Mozilla as described in the comment.
Was interesting to hear the entire perspective but the "marriage thing?" That wasn't exactly small. Imagine if gave money instead to the KKK... would that have been just "a racial heritage thing?"
Backing something that separates families is divisive and not appropriate for an organization that is about openness and diversity, especially given the current tech climate of monoculture.
Engineers can really be the worst offenders when it comes to hate-like views, I think in part because they're likely smarter than the average person so they've completely convinced themselves that they're the rational ones.
I remember back when I was at Google in 2008. A survey on lgbt issues went around company wide. What came back was so completely shocking and insane, especially out of Russia and India. Burn them, kill them, they don't desire to live, etc. And this was a survey you gave back to your employer!!!
Edit: as many people have missed my point let me clarify. The comparison against the KKK was simply to illustrate that who you donate to and support affects your organization, especially when that cause negatively impacts the personal lives of your employees (and goes against your org core values, and reinforces an existing problem of monoculture). I'm not saying prop 8 == KKK, I'm showing that personal beliefs matter when you're a leader.
There's a world of difference between opposing gay marriage and supporting a white supremacist terrorist organization. They're not even remotely comparable.
Specifically, it's entirely possible to oppose gay marriage on a number of grounds without being homophobic or bigoted; in my experience even as a young gay man in San Francisco, most of the people in my life who don't support gay marriage are perfectly reasonable, kind individuals who don't hate their gay friends. It's rather shallow to consider one's stance on LGBT issues through a single, limited lens, given that there are dozens of other issues (HIV, youth homelessness, alcoholism, depression) that affect the LGBT community.
I'm sorry but that does not make much sense. Even if they don't "hate" their gay friends, they are pro limiting their rights and actually mandating on how they should live their life.
It is the very definition of being bigoted.
They're not perfectly reasonable, and they are not kind. They just like to think they are through a lenses that hides away some parts of the population.
Society at large is mandating the lives of everyone in ways that are much more serious and inhibiting than the inability to get married, so that's moot. Someone else's willingness to perform a religious ceremony on you is not a right. You could make the argument that married people receive benefits that unmarried people do not and that particular unfairness should be done away with, which is a very valid concern, but that was never the point. You stop caring about "rights" and "bigotry" when it no longer affects you or where it is deemed socially acceptable to do so - the single, the polygamous, the incestuous, they can get stuffed.
> Society at large is mandating the lives of everyone in ways that are much more serious and inhibiting than the inability to get married
That's a pretty bad comparison. Limits are in place to protect people's own rights and life. Someone getting married has no influence on someone else's life. Therefore it's an overreach and yes, it is bigotry.
The fight for same-sex marriages is not about religious ceremonies and you should know that. It's about having the same rights as other non-same-sex couples in regards to property rights, inheritance, hospital visit, etc. No one said otherwise.
Here's a gay man, which I would think gives him some authority, sharing his opinion on the matter of same-sex marriage, and here you are telling him his nuanced views are apartheid-enabling. These kinds of exaggerated reactions, false accusations and radical rhetoric is why I do not want to be associated with the self-proclaimed "progressives". To put it in your own terms: your type of demonizing slander has been used to support [insert horrible event].
Your position, and that of the OP, rests on religion having a privileged place: It excuses bigotry. That's not nuanced. That's wrong, and the comparison to miscegenation laws, and the various excuses for those laws, is apt. You can't fit a dime between support of miscegenation laws and support for repeal of gay marriage.
> it's entirely possible to oppose gay marriage on a number of grounds without being homophobic or bigoted
How so?
I mean, I really haven't heard any arguments against same sex marriage that were not homophobic, so I'm actually curious since the definition of homophobia in Merriam-Webster [1] is:
"irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals"
I would thought that opposing to gay marriage would amount to discrimination against homosexuals, no?
Edit: Can't reply to mrbabbage due to anti-flame filter or something, but I guess, if I understand correctly, the contention point is about how people define marriage. So if marriage is, in some people's view, something entirely religious-related, then for them it would not be considered opposing gay marriage as something related to discrimination, but related to not "breaking" said definition.
For others, marriage would be just a religious-independent term, that signifies a certain set of life decisions (living with your partner, etc) as well as certain legal responsibilities and rights.
Ok, I get your point now. And I was honestly not wanting to start a flame war, and was genuinely asking since I wasn't clear on this. I guess the debate then turns into whether as a community (for different values of community) we should consider marriage as a legal term devoid of any religious implication, or not.
Edit2: I'm not even sure if people would even be able to agree on this, at least not for several generations.
Edit3: Wow, not sure why I would get downvoted for asking an honest question. I am seeing the vote counter jump up and down. Very interesting.
For lots of people, "marriage" is extremely intertwined with religious practice, and some religious traditions don't recognize same-sex marriages. It's not a matter of a specific desire to discriminate; for these people, marriage simply isn't a thing two men or two women can do.
Furthermore, for the separate population of radical people on the left, they tend to be skeptical of the role of the state in shaping domestic relationships and structures, so they tend to advocate for the abolition of legal structures (like marriage) that privilege certain types of domestic relationships over others. You can even see this in the history of the LGBT movement in the United States -- before the 1980s and the AIDS crisis, LGBT activists fought far more often for the abolition of marriage, not for gay marriage.
And 70 years ago, those same religious people would have said miscegenation is against their religious practices. Similarly for inter-faith marriages. There are many examples of the mutability of their so-called religious practices. So let's not pretend it's anything but a dodge to avoid taking responsibility for their bigotry.
It's not specific to gay marriage, but I think we ought to remove government recognition of all marriages. It codifies assumptions about lifestyle that we don't need to accept as norm.
Tax law isn't that way, as are many defaults for how things work.
Previously many days did in fact go through very complicated legal proceedings to try and do this, but many places where it matters (like hospitals) don't have those contracts so its very different from just saying 'thats my husband/wife'.
I think that's the more important bit -- having society recognize the relationship as equally valid, such that all the things that normal straight married people take for granted can also be taken for granted by gays. Unless law codifies that, it's harder to do.
Civil rights has often focused on law as a kind of behavior floor and codification of rights -- society then takes many years to catch up but its a very motivating factor.
...or split out religious marriages from state recognised marriages.
If a religious bigot wants to discriminate against gay people, well, that's not great but up to them. When the state wants to discriminate against gay people that's worse, especially since "right to a family life" is a human right.
If a homosexual bigot wants to discriminate against christians, well, that's not great but up to them. When the state wants to discriminate against christians, that's worse, especially since "right to family life" is a human right.
No, the ruling is about treating every human being equally. Regardless of their religion, skin color, facial features, hair color, etc.
Who is the "homosexual bigot" in your example? The judge practicing the law of the country ? Per U.S. Declaration of Independence, "All men are created equal".
Comments like the last few are a great reminder of why maybe the government shouldn't be prescribing a particular sort of relationship as ideal.
If you don't like gay marriage, that's great, don't get one! Go to a church that doesn't recognize them!
If you do like gay marriage, cool - go get one!
Either way, call yourself married! Or not! Fortunately the government can recognize things like shared decision making, inheritance, property ownership, etc. without having to recognize that some people held a ceremony and a party and others didn't.
You can only have equality before the law. The civil rights laws from the 60s were only justified due to the extraordinary nature of systemic and pervasive discrimination, which state governments encouraged and mandated since the end of slavery, in the South towards Black Americans. Unfortunately, what was then viewed as an extraordinary measure for an extraordinary situation, has now been expanded to every group imaginable and is now being used as a tool of social triumphalism.
There is no crisis where gay couples are unable to find wedding bakers and photographers willing to serve them. I personally have no problem with homosexuality and gay marriage. But someone with religious convictions against it, should not be compelled to be involved. It's totally wrong to force a devout Christian photographer to participate in a gay wedding if he is opposed. What entitles you to his labor?
I've yet to see anyone pro-ssm get behind this kind of thinking, even though it is completely fair and rational to all groups. They want the state involved and for the state to define marriage so as to make it unfair to those who don't believe what they believe. i.e. "Marriage is just a couple who love each other" vs. other traditional beliefs.
Well, I'm pro-ssm and I advocate this kind of thinking.
Pragmatic me thinks: "It's kind of weird that we encode the idea of two adults sharing a home, family, and bed to the exclusion of other models, but IF we're going to do that we should let gay and straight couples do so"
Idealistic me thinks: "Why the hell does the government recognize marriage anyway? People arrange their lives in dozens of different ways. A person can coparent/cohabit/have sex with/share medical choices with/share financial choices with/(etc.) a number of different partners, but we've decided "two adults doing all of those things is the norm, and anything else is less than ideal", which is a bit stifling.
There are other models. Maybe the Mosuo "walking marriage" should become a codified norm instead?
I'm in favor of gay marriage, but this position seems widely held and it's a little baffling. Marriage is itself nothing more than a cultural tradition. If you don't agree, go work out a logical derivation of why the practice of pairing up is optimal and report back. From that perspective, is it really surprising that some people want traditional traditions? On the balance, I think gay marriage is a good idea, but I also think there's something to be said for going slow when abandoning traditions.
> is it really surprising that some people want traditional traditions?
Well, no. I guess not. And in that context, there will definitely always be a broad spectrum of those that want to keep traditions as such, and those that want change.
But it seems that at least for this particular tradition, it gets trickier to just consider it "a tradition" since it is so intertwined with the legal definition, for some countries at least.
So even though it's "just" a cultural tradition, it makes a big effect on the outcome of legal matters.
I mean, I've seen groups that oppose same-sex marriage suggest calling that "legal relationship between two people" something other than marriage, giving it the same rights and that would be enough.
The thing I try to imagine is, what would happen if some country would completely decouple the marriage term from the legal definition, if that would make things better or not.
As long as every legal matter related to the definition of this new term is updated, and so referring to marriage would only be at the religious level (no other consequences than that), what would happen? would that be a good solution for most? or would it be maybe just enough ?
I'm pretty sure there would be people disliking the idea of having a different term, however legally equivalent it may be, and probably they could give good reasons, but would it be the majority or a minority?
There's a legal aspect, but that's still just a law codifying cultural norms. Why do people have to wear clothes in public? The libertarian abstraction of people as living in isolation from one another until they choose to interact is a good example of a leaky abstraction.
> If you don't agree, go work out a logical derivation of why the practice of pairing up is optimal and report back.
You can't exactly do it from first principles, or from Euclid's five axioms. It's arbitrary, but it's an arbitrary part of the society we live in, so there are reasons why marrying - as opposed to just 'pairing up' - is optimal.
1. Family rights - if your partner is sick and in the hospital, marriage allows you to make decisions on their behalf, gives you visitation rights, and allows you to receive benefits if worse comes to worst. It also gives you greater rights when it comes to any children you may have.
2. Taxes - the government gives incentives to married couples. (We could argue that in states where gay marriage is prohibited this is not the case, but that just sounds like more discrimination.)
Marriage has specific social benefits that the government wants to encourage. It also helps to streamline certain bureaucratic processes. At the end of the day, it's simple: it's not your marriage, so why do you care?
There's a world of difference between opposing gay marriage and supporting a white supremacist terrorist organization. They're not even remotely comparable.
You shouldn't have responded. :( The guy is obviously a troll.
I'm also a gay man in SF and I don't share your view point at all. Telling me I can't get married, have kids (intertwined issue), and live a normal life means you've denied me happiness and freedom of expression. There's nothing perfectly reasonable about that.
Other issues that affect lgbt community aren't on topic -- eich donated to prop 8.
You decided to compare many good people to terrorists. Don't be surprised by the blowback. If you don't want to distract from your point, consider picking a better analogy next time.
It wasn't an analogy. It was establishing that there is a point at which supporting a class of political organization renders you unfit to be a leader of Mozilla.
So, if for example I prevented black people from voting, but then volunteered at a homeless shelter, I could be considered a good person? I can offset my discrimination by doing volunteer work?
I'm not saying people can make up for doing bad things. I'm arguing against prejudice (as in judging someone before you meet them and judging people instead of individuals).
> I'm not saying people can make up for doing bad things.
That's precisely what you are saying. Mormons do wonderful things in many cases, especially in disaster relief and other humanitarian projects. They also have official positions that are bigoted. Both can be true, but the good does not make up for the bad. The prop 8 effort was a work of bigotry.
No, I'm saying it's hateful and hypocritical to ignorantly hate on otherwise good people. It's easier (and probably feels better) to make them all out to be mustache twirlers, but it's more of a convenient truth than reality.
There's a bit of tension between "divisive is bad" and "we should have a diverse industry", unless "diverse" is redefined to mean "San Francisco liberals of all races, genders, etc."
"Divisive" is an interesting word, and one very, very useful if you're on the popular side of a monoculture. Anyone asking to be in your industry who you don't like is being divisive.
> I think in part because they're likely smarter than the average person so they've completely convinced themselves that they're the rational ones.
The average Californian voted for the proposition Eich donated to. Is it rational to compare the majority of Californian voters to the KKK? Is it rational to call the positions of both Obama and Clinton in 2008 hateful?
Yes. They're both about harming and dividing people in the name of irrational beliefs supported by their emotions. These beliefs in the past even led to consensuses of imprisonment, beatings, and murders. If Eich merely had an opinion, I'd just disagree with it and say let him keep doing his good work. Putting money into active attacks on Americans' liberties, including his own employees/contributors, is totally different. Keep him or get rid of him is a grey area for me where I'm not decided on morale superiority of either yet. It could have wide-ranging effects in other areas of political participation.
Nonetheless, eliminating the wallet of someone paying to split you from your lover seems like self-defense rather than an attack. Their reaction was justified to say the least. The real evil here is the consistent trend of one group of people trying to limit another they disagree with. Let them be them, us be us, whatever so long as no provable harm is happening. That's my baseline for civil liberties.
The other commenter figured it out. Eich donated to a group specifically about causing gay people harm. You can either ignore someone financing harm or punish them as deterrence. Many chose to punish.
Now, Obama is a dirty politician people chose over more honest runners. His claims and voting record mismatched early enough to know. Electing scumbags is another kind of harm. People can ignore or react to that too.
Far as politicians, supporting certain types of laws is a requirement for election given how voters act in this country. So, I'd make an exception there where I wouldn't fire prople but you could boycott their business or state if you wanted.
Are you seriously arguing that a donation to a statewide ballot issue has more wide-reaching influence than a donation to the President of the entire country?
Obama didn't have to "donate money". He's the one getting donations for making the policy, not the one giving money to influence it.
Obama is supposed to act as an agent of his constituents and a leader at the same time. His constituents are tens of to 100+ million Americans with a variety of demands. He has to vote or act their way a good amount of time to get or stay elected. It's very constrained and dirty due to inherently corrupt environment between cost of elections (excludes good folks, promotes lobbying) and tyranny of majority. System and demand side are problem because they exclude all honest, decent people from President. Name a counterexample in past two decades if you doubt that.
So, Presidents and often (not always) Congress are a special situation compared to a group voluntarily creating organizatikns to push for harm and people supporting that over better organizations. Totally different in both what options are available to people starting nonprofits and which people can donate to vs what specific actions a President or Congress can pull off.
I think a better what to say this is the majority of Californian voters. Voter demographics tend to swing more conservative than the population at large on these issues.
The people didn't support assassination and terrorism, in fact those helped bring down the KKK, but they did support the goal of white Protestant supremacy. At its height in the 1920s, before the KKK's downfall in scandal, "claimed Klan membership exceeded four million and comprised 20% of the adult white male population in many broad geographic regions, and 40% in some areas". (cited on Wikipedia).
Klan member Edward L. Jackson was elected governor of Indiana, and "Although the full extent of the Klan's power was unknown at that time, it claimed that its members occupied more than half the seats in the Indiana General Assembly, and a large percentage of the local offices in Indiana." (Wikipedia again, but uncited)
Regarding Eich, while I don't think he himself supports violence, it's not such a huge leap to violence from a platform whose roots are in the Biblical verses:
"You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination" (Leviticus 18:22)
and
"If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them" (Leviticus 20:13)
Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Christians who love the Bible know this passage by heart. Very few care to memorize the (no-longer-followed) legal code of Israel. The ignorant choose to take the Bible out of context to justify their hate. Please don't make the same mistake.
How does that jive with comments like " He got shamed out of his job for having had donated money to a group that was against same-sex marriage. Basically, all people who hold Christian values don't deserve to have a job." elsewhere in this thread?
Jesus and the apostles clearly taught that sexual immorality is harmful. It's a sticky proposition for one to call herself a Christian and reject Christ's teachings.
It's stickier yet for someone who doesn't claim Christ at all to define what Christianity entails or what good or bad Christians do.
I don't want to debate theology; I meant only that the Bible says homosexuals should be put to death, and it's easy to see how repeating and emphasizing that verse encourages violence.
It's not much harder to see how defining homosexuals as "immoral" or simply as a lesser class of people not entitled to all the same rights as heterosexuals also encourages violence.
It's impossible to talk about what's moral and not without getting theological.
The Bible defines homosexuals as immoral. It's not ambiguous about that. But it says everyone is immoral. And it says all rights are given by God, not by men. And, partly because of this, it also says, very clearly, that senseless violence is despicable.
That is to say, at least part the problem is with theology, or at least bad theology. And Mozilla, perhaps unintentionally, has taken a theological position by removing Eich. Or at least it thinks it can't productively tolerate certain people. And some of those people are good people with genuinely held religious views.
So, yeah, Mozilla is getting some blowback. And, no, it's not because being opposed to same sex marriage is the same ridiculous theology of the KKK.
> It's not impossible to discuss morality without theology (consider humanism) but that's irrelevant.
Humanism has massive theological implications. You can't be a humanist and a Christian at the same time, for example. The Bible encourages Christians to get along with humanists. Unfortunately, humanists have no holy book to encourage reciprocal behavior.
> My problem is with anyone who uses any excuse (including theology) to deny people equal rights.
You presume rights that are not natural rights. And they're not God-given. They're not even constitutional. (Yeah, the Supreme Court case was terrible law). They simply seemed like they should be rights, so they were "imposed" on "other people" through... well, not the law, but through the legal system. And in the process, the rights of many were violated (the right to due process before constitutional changes were made, for instance).
> I object to his attempt to impose his religious views on other people through the law and deny other people the right to choose for themselves.
...and you want to punish him and his ilk by denying them the right to choose certain career paths. Judges, county clerks, wedding planners, JoP, etc. I guess CEO and other PR positions as well.
If someone can't follow the law, including the rulings of the Supreme Court, rather than their personal beliefs (religious or otherwise), then they aren't qualified to be a judge. That's something all judges must do; it's not unique to this law.
But if they can set aside their personal beliefs while on the bench and follow the law, they can still be judges.
And they can certainly be CEOs, but CEOs will always be judged on their public image. That's not unique to this debate either. Remaining (publicly) neutral on controversial issues is often an unspoken job requirement. Particularly civil rights issues.
> they were "imposed" on "other people"
Everyone can choose for themselves now. Allowing other people to choose is not forcing you to accept their beliefs. (I do agree that wedding planners, bakers, etc should be free to choose whether to participate.)
Freedom means sometimes other people will choose to do things you think are immoral.
The same Leviticus who claims eating shellfish and birds is an abomination?
"and they shall be abhorrent to you; you may not eat of their flesh, and their carcasses you shall detest. 12'Whatever in the water does not have fins and scales is abhorrent to you. 13'These, moreover, you shall detest among the birds; they are abhorrent, not to be eaten: the eagle and the vulture and the buzzard,…"
Yes, and almost no one pays any attention to the rest of Leviticus anymore -- only to the verses about homosexuality.
More importantly, the second verse encourages those who hate homosexuals to kill them, and I hope the overwhelming majority of us can agree that's not acceptable.
I just read a quote the other day. Roe vs. Wade passed while Nixon was president, but he didn't really get involved publicly. Some private tapes were made though, in one of them he said that abortion was "necessary" in some circumstances. Such as mixed race pregnancies!
So the monoculture is of a diverse "national" cultures but it needs to be replaced with a US centric progressive view monoculture?
You have to explain your reasoning here.
And I don't understand how the opposition to gay marriage is about separating families and is the equivalent of raging racists that lynch innocent people of colour. Can you explain that also?
This isn't exactly a new idea about open societies. See for example Karl Popper in 1945:
"Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."
But it is much more colloquially known as "live and let live."
>And I don't understand how the opposition to gay marriage is about separating families and is the equivalent of raging racists that lynch innocent people of colour. Can you explain that also?
Also, somewhat tired ground by now, but the California proposition would separated families and deprived them of the legal rights that families have. Your "lynch" analogy is a strawman, the KKK doesn't really do that these days, but it still does vile things. The KKK of today is quite equivalent in effect and practice to California's prop 8.
> Also, somewhat tired ground by now, but the California proposition would separated families and deprived them of the legal rights that families have. Your "lynch" analogy is a strawman, the KKK doesn't really do that these days, but it still does vile things. The KKK of today is quite equivalent in effect and practice to California's prop 8.
Well I'm not familiar at that level of US culture, and that illustrates the main point of critique that I tried to convey. The Prop 8 and KKK equivalence is a little unclear to me from a different background.
But that is impressive, using the paradox of tolerance to advocate protectionism.
They think diversity of race/gender is more important than diversity of opinion. I support marriage equality, but would not equate the opposition to the KKK - that's the kind of extremist thinking that arises in a monoculture bubble.
He followed the internal guidelines and respected the TGBL people inside mozilla. That should have been the end of it.
"I fundamentally disagree with you about this very important issue, and we should still find a way to cooperate" is a crucial idea, hard won and, as we are seeing, easily lost. It underpins multi-religious societies, working democracies, and in general, any group of people that need to do something. Unfortunately, right now we have groups of people that say the polar oposite: "It is good and moral to shun people who disagree with X".
I totally agree with marriage equality. But I think it can be (and mostly was) won on dialogue, not shunning. And I will always be against the shunners (though I hope not to shun them :P).
btw, all I just said applies just as well to klanspeople: Are they harming the employees? No? Are they aligned with the mission? Them keep them. And tell them they are stupid over a beer. Talk the shit out, and fight their stupid ideas in the right places. Do not allow political disagreement, even of the most grievous kind, to cut oportunities for dialogue and cooperation.
Many people simply aren't willing to let single-issue hysteria drive our behavior, instead prefering to consider many aspects of a given situation. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this leads to better engineering output, but it is not exclusive to engineers.
> Was interesting to hear the entire perspective but the "marriage thing?" That wasn't exactly small. Imagine if gave money instead to the KKK... would that have been just "a racial heritage thing?"
As long as they operate within the law then that's not something someone should be fired for. Otherwise, would you fire someone for donating to e.g. the Republican party? If you can't express a legal political position without being fired then you don't have free speech[1] in any meaningful sense.
[1] Which does not just mean the first amendment, I don't understand the confusion that leads people to think this.
Aaaand, resigning of your own free will because your employees don't agree with your politics (and may no longer want to follow your leadership) seems like a consequence you should be ready to accept when you engage politically.
Every candidate has supported things I disagree strongly with. That doesn't change that they may have supported many more things that I agree even more strongly with. Donating to a campaign against marriage equality is very different than donating to a candidate who (among other things) is against marriage equality.
What happened to Eich was the digital and career equivalent to a lynching. Good views (equality) should not be supported by bad behavior (online lynch mobs).
But this is almost certainly not a useful subject to rehash when there are no doubt other interesting things to discuss about Mozilla.
> How are/were families separated due to not being able to get married?
Many same-sex partners have been barred from hospital rooms, cut off from estates (in the event of their partner's deaths), and limited from access to their children after breakups. These all rely on the legal framework of marriage to navigate, and this was something that was not available to most of the gay population of the US until last year.
It's a great example how how the old notion of keeping business, politics and religion separate makes a lot of sense.
If you cannot respect folks professionally, you need to go. If your religious beliefs call for my <insert attribute here> to be condemned/killed/declared heretic/etc, good for you. But we're not taking the issue up at work.
I think I mostly agree with you on the particulars, but asking religious people to stay in the closet isn't healthy either. Maybe certain discussions need to happen outside of the normal workday, but you wouldn't support a policy that required someone to leave their race, gender, or sexual orientation at home, would you?
Unfortunately, religion is a dragon that difficult to tame. My family is Catholic... My wife once was accosted by some fringe evangelical "Christian" guy warning her of imminent doom due to her idolatry of the pope. Not acceptable.
You have the right to live as your conscience and values dictate. But you don't have the right to interfere with the ability of others to do the same.
Well it is to be expected from places like Russia and India tbh. I am from the UK and such comments would be seen as shocking but we all know Russia hates gay people it makes sense that employees who grew up and continue to live in Russia are going to have very Russian views. Just because they work for a modern, progressive company such as Google (or Microsoft or Apple ...) isn't going to change their opinions on such things.
You would have got the same kind of responses in America if you asked about how blacks should be treated/integrated into the company back in the 1950s.
In your example I doubt a giant portion of people would say "burn them alive." I don't think you understand race relations in the US.
Regardless, this was 2008, not 1950s. It also wasn't only Russia and India. Americans, Europeans, and others also came back with extremely intolerant views as well TO THEIR EMPLOYER AND COLLEAGUES!!
> Well it is to be expected from places like Russia and India tbh.
Every single person in the world knows that one hundred percent of all the people from the UK know damn well to stay away from generalizations. Oh wait.
Ugh I knew somebody would bring up generalisations. Yes yes I know not every single person in Russia hates and wants to kill gay people. Ask a gay person if they would go to Russia and be openly gay without worrying about it? I doubt you would find many who would be fine with doing that. I have been to Russia many times, it is an amazing place, but I have seen how anti-gay many places in Russia are so yeah I will generalise and say the majority seem to be against gays.
You've interpreted a statistical claim about population means as a universal claim about all members of a group. That is incorrect, uncharitable, and unhelpful if your goal is discussion rather than browbeating.
Gays are killed in many countries BY LAW. Believe me, many of those running the prop 8 campaign, Family research counsel, etc would like to see gays either imprisoned, committed, killed, or otherwise removed from society.
Regardless, the comparison was not meant to be quite so 1:1. It was to illustrate with a "clearer case" that CEOs that support divisive organizations affect the organization that they lead.
Have you read the whole text of the SCOTUS? Because it clearly states that people in the US are entitled to think AND opine differently in this issue...
> Backing something that separates families is divisive and not appropriate for an organization that is about openness and diversity
How about end-users that hold the same divisive values as Mr. Eich? Surely Mozilla shouldn't tolerate these either.
I recommend a first-run wizard that quizzes the user's political stance. If the user is on the wrong side of history, Firefox will automatically uninstall itself. Nothing is more important than the projects moral purity, right?
I think what people are missing most in this debate is that the guy was just hired as CEO. One of the CEO's most important roles is to manage shitstorms.
Whatever your position is on gay marriage, right out of the gate Eich got overwhelmed. He was the one in the position to do something about the shitstorm, and yet it grew rather than diminished.
If you're going to get paid as much as a CEO does, you should be able to finesse difficult PR situations; he clearly couldn't, so it's reasonable that he got axed. The actual topic of the shitstorm doesn't even need to enter into it.
Some folks might think that donating money to an abortion clinic amounts to something just as bad, so it's really all about political beliefs.
It's ridiculous to me that a group that is supposed to be against oppression, bigotry, and bullying, practices exactly this when it involves people with differing beliefs.
It only makes people like Trump even more popular.
Because the differing belief has to do with delegitimizating someone else!!! If the believe was personal like I believe in this god, etc, then it doesn't actually affect someone else. What's not clear?
A while ago a hiring manager allegedly from Mozilla Vancouver posted a long rant that he went through 60 interviews yet couldn't find a junior dev which was downvoted to oblivion with angry comments. He shortly deleted all of his comments since then but reading this employees comments on slashdot makes me fit together the puzzle pieces....Mozilla has become a trust fund for incompetent people to earn a cheque every month.
Google Chrome has really done a number on the browser market and surpassed the 25% mark for quite some time while Firefox has been dwindling to irrelevance. Failed to even eat into IE marketshare.
* It was for a senior security engineer, not a junior dev
* I looked at 63 candidates (as in applicants / resumes)
* IIRC I screen interviewed around 10
* IIRC we advanced around 4 to the full interview process
I deleted my comments for 3 reasons:
* Someone else took the initiative to link my comments to the Mozilla Vancouver office, and implied that we tried to fill that position locally
* Despite identifying in my initial comment that it was an exceptional circumstance people were acting like it was the norm
* In my initial comment I said interviewing 63 candidates, not reviewing 63 candidates; after the thread blew up I revised it to reviewed, but it's the internet :/
Mea culpa, but hiring qualified security people is really hard these days, and has been for years.
One other very important note - when we were filling that role the guidance was the the position should be filled in one of our offices, not remotely. Once that restriction was removed, the position was filled almost immediately.
I can't comment on the other points, but the author is right about Firefox. The last time I tried it (several months ago), it really came across as a browser that looks like Chrome but is worse in almost every way. It's lack of performance is what struck out to me the most, despite the fact that I have several extensions running.
This is just anecdotal of course, so take it with a grain of salt.
To counter your anecdote with some more anecdote, I just switched from Chrome to Firefox and have felt that the latter has some serious performance advantages over the former.
It's probably just me, but I always struggle with the "latter" and "former" construction, especially when they are reversed like that. I had to read it several times before I understood. In case it helps someone else, it translates as:
To counter your anecdote with some more anecdote, I
switched from Chrome to Firefox, and have felt that that
Firefox has some serious performance advantages over Chrome.
I wonder sometimes if my inability to parse sentences like this relates to my preference for C over C++. The "former" and "latter" abstraction reminds me of Eli's examples here http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2016/returning-multiple-values-... of first->first and first->second.
Sorry to have been unclear -- thank you for making the effort to read my measly comment, however!
It does appear similar to the idea of abusing tuples, insofar as having to keep the meanings of each element in mind without any help from the syntax. shrugs I guess my nervousness around Internet commenting surfaces as excessively formal language. Apologies again for any future confusion :|
I honestly wonder to what degree this is just a "perceptions being warped by preconceptions" thing. I use Firefox at home and Chrome at work and the differences in performance are insignificant compared to stuff like Chrome constantly asking me if I want to get tracked.
also, iirc, Firefox did alright in benchmarks at many points in history.
My wife was complaining about the performance of her computer. Shes running a MacBook Air, Chrome, Firefox and Quickbooks. Ran a system check and Firefox running 7 tabs (2 spreadsheets, 1 email, 1 pinterest and browising 3 ecom sites) was taking up over 1.4gb of ram. Seriously.
Killed Firefox and the system responsiveness was considerably better. Its amazing that the memory bloat in FF has been allowed to go on for so long. But hey, IoT!
I have never really had performance issues in either browser to be honest. They both work fine, I just prefer firefox, possibly above all else because I love the UI on firebug.
Author thinks that a browser that hijacks ads to show other ads is going to be a hit. The first technology that gets added to that thing via 3rd party plugin is going to be an ad blocker, because the entire idea is stupid.
When I switched from iOS to Android at the start of the year I switched from Firefox to Chrome to give it a try again (because why not) and yup Chrome is better in pretty much every way IMHO. The only thing I actually dislike about Chrome when compared to Firefox is that Firefox saves the page state when navigating backwards but Chrome does not (such as on reddit if you have collapsed comment threads).
Literally everything else about Chrome is better. Oh yeah and it actually syncs all my settings correctly unlike on Firefox where some changes never seem to sync for some reason.
For example: finding and deleting tracking cookies is still laborious in Firefox. You have to select domains one by one, hitting "Remove selected" each time. Why can't you select multiple domains at once and nuke them? Why can't it tell you which tab is using up CPU resources, so you can close it? And in "private browsing" mode: why are cookies still carried over? That's not so "private", is it??
The whole FirefoxOS thing sounded just like a solution looking for a problem. I have been in situations (Govt grants) where the grantees have too much money and will just throw it at random proposals which have no hope of working. This sounded just like that.
Since they have so much money to burn, why don't they support worthwhile OSS efforts (like SSL, for example)? There are tons of little tools and libraries that we use in *nix land, that could benefit from some $$. Mozilla should offer "Mozilla fellowships" or "Mozilla sabbaticals", where they support a developer for a year or two fulltime to work on their projects.
Most of Mozilla's work is done by volunteers anyways. Why should the execs get paid so much?