pages tagged unityhroy.euhttps://hroy.eu/tags/unity/hroy.euikiwiki2023-10-30T21:07:17ZMozilla’s one week CEO steps downhttps://hroy.eu/posts/mozilla-eich-down/2023-10-30T21:07:17Z2014-04-03T22:00:00Z
My immediate feelings related to Brendan Eich stepping down as Mozilla CEO<hr><br><p>Just saw on twitter that <a
href="https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/03/brendan-eich-steps-down-as-mozilla-ceo/">Brendan
Eich steps down as Mozilla CEO</a>.</p>
<p>We won’t even know if it would have been a good fit for Mozilla to
face the challenges ahead with Firefox OS. But what I am sure of, is
that there was definitely a mistake made by the board and by Brendan
Eich, because they didn’t see it coming. The fact that he supported
California anti-gay rights to marriage is known since 2012. He had
plenty of time to think things through and to revert his action (for
instance by <a
href="http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2014/03/29/mozilla-equality/">counter-donating
in support of marriage equality</a>).</p>
<p>I wouldn’t have stopped using Firefox or promoting it just because of
this. To put it bluntly, I do not care about Brendan Eich’s opinion on
the matter of rights to marriage. However, I care about Mozilla’s
approach and its ability to strive as a community of people building the
web and advocating our freedom to build it, with free software. And I
sure don’t want to exclude any good contributor because of race,
religion, gender or opinion (or lack thereof)–as long as they do not
contradict or weaken our common goal.
<a class="toggle" href="https://hroy.eu/tags/unity/#posts-mozilla-eich-down.tweetmozceo">My take is
that what unites us is stronger than what divides us.</a></p>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/hugoroyd/status/451820015764115456">Discuss
this on Twitter</a>
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<p>I have no particular sympathy for Eich. But the whole situation still
leaves a bit of a bitter taste, or at least some sense of weirdness.
It’s hard to process exactly and it’s hard to think how beneficial this
outcome is. What progress has been made now that he’s out?</p>
<p>Also, isn’t this too harsh on the freedom to have your own private
opinions? You might say it’s a bit of a stretch because the donation was
made public; still I don’t really see this as being made in a public
capacity. It’s good to be held accountable for what you do, and
transparency is sometimes needed; but transparency can also be an
enemy.</p>
<p>I prefer to convince people to change their minds through discussion
rather than winning by “having their head on a spike” (in the case of
Eich, this is an exaggeration).</p>
<p>In the end, I suppose the attitude that I have a problem with was
along the lines of: “Eich is against gay marriage, so either he steps
down as CEO or I stop contributing to Firefox/I boycott Mozilla/etc.”
Especially taking into account <a
href="https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2014/03/26/building-a-global-diverse-inclusive-mozilla-project-addressing-controversy/">all
other signs that Mozilla is doing well on this</a> as an
organisation.</p>