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News Eich steps down from Mozilla over equal rights furore

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Gareth Halfacree, 4 Apr 2014.

  1. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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  2. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    Just a heads up..
    I'm guessing that should read "man" and "curtail"
     
  3. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Guess these 12-hour days are beginning to catch up to me. Fixed, ta!
     
  4. Umbra

    Umbra What's a Dremel?

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  5. Umbra

    Umbra What's a Dremel?

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  6. law99

    law99 Custom User Title

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    Does seem odd that no one cared when he was CTO.

    Not really sure what to think about this one.
     
  7. Guinevere

    Guinevere Mega Mom

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    Not true, it did flare up at the time.

    But "not sacking someone for their personal beliefs" is not the same as "promoting someone to the top dog in the entire company even though his personal beliefs are incompatible with the publicly stated aims and direction of the organisation".

    Mozilla professes to be a very fair, open and inclusive organisation and having a homophobe (There I said it) as the CEO wasn't right.

    Edit: Couldn't post this on the article page as I had an invalid security token apparently.
     
  8. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Yarp, looks like something's snapped in the transfer. I'll flag it with the elves, get it sorted. Cheers for the heads-up!
     
  9. Snips

    Snips I can do dat, giz a job

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    A very good move Mozilla, you stay classy ;)
     
  10. law99

    law99 Custom User Title

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    I dont know enough about the man to say he is homophobic. Prop 8 I dont know enough about either but there are people who aren't homophobic, that don't believe in same sex marriage, however irrational their stance outwardly appears.

    Maybe I need to read more about him but his own statement on the subject was there would be no change in Mozilla's stance to freedom. Perhaps I am unaware that he has called homosexuals subhuman?
     
  11. Cthippo

    Cthippo Can't mod my way out of a paper bag

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    Regardless of his beliefs, it says something about his ability to lead that he didn't address this issue before now. All we know is that he made the donation, and we're inferring his values from that. By not going in front of the cameras and saying "These are my values and this is why I made the donation" he allowed a vacuum of information to be filled in by whatever people wanted to see.

    Contrast that with GM CEO Mary Barra who was also in the news this week. Despite the fact that she was not CEO when the decisions were made that led to the problems her company faces, she was out in front of the cameras offering explanations and doing the best she could to preserve the company's public image.

    Whatever Eich's values are, I would say that his handling of this issue did not inspire confidence in Mozilla and that had to be a contributing factor in his departure.
     
  12. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    He certainly does not accord them the same rights as heterosexuals.

    Never mind his personal beliefs. He is entitled to have them. He is not entitled to impose them on others, which is what Proposition 8 aimed to do. If this man wishes to impose his personal beliefs on society at large, who is to say that he won't impose them on his company staff? He is already demonstrating a lack of appropriate boundaries.
     
    Last edited: 4 Apr 2014
  13. Guinevere

    Guinevere Mega Mom

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    Erm...

    That holds as much water as a statements such as:

    "There are people who aren't racist, that don't believe in allowing blacks to paid the same as white folk"
    "There are people who aren't misogynistic, that don't believe in allowing girls to get an education"
    "There are people who aren't peodophiles, that don't believe there should be a legal age of consent"

    If you think of women as inferior or not as worthy / important as men you're misogynistic.
    If you think those of a different race should not be granted the same rights as yourself, then you're a racist.
    If you think homosexuals should not be granted the same rights as straight people, then you're a homophobe.

    It's not identifying as a homophobe that makes someone a homophobe, it's their thoughts, words and deeds.

    It doesn't count to be homophobic by supporting the withholding of rights and and then say "I'm not a homophobe, but..."

    The man paid to support a motion which had the sole aim of withholding rights held by straight people from homosexual people.

    Supporting that motion was a homophobic act.
    The man hasn't changed his mind.
    Therefore, the man is a homophobe. End. Of

    But he's ALLOWED to be a homophobe. I'm GLAD he's allowed this rights, because rights are important!

    I'm sure he'd make a wonderful Republican Senator but he was a rubbish choice for CEO of Mozilla.
     
    Last edited: 5 Apr 2014
  14. SlowMotionSuicide

    SlowMotionSuicide Come Hell or High Water

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    "Picking up on the intolerance of dissent theme, the progressive left has mastered the practice of smearing people as "hateful" for simply having opposing views on questions of public policy."

    I'm all for equal gay rights, but I also don't think people should be condemned just for having a different opinion, no matter how much you dislike it.
     
  15. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    The problem is when someone attempts to turn their personal opinion into a law that effects others.
    No one is saying he can't believe what ever he likes, but when someone tries to impose that belief onto others it crosses the line, from the freedom of speech/thought to restricting other peoples freedoms.
     
  16. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Precisely.
     
  17. law99

    law99 Custom User Title

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    I agree with you. But my statement is still true as I said I didn't know about Prop 8. You can not believe in gay marriage and not be a homophobe. If you genuinely believe that a civil partnership is equal.

    I don't think that a civil partnership is equal. This is demonstrated in other threads on this very forum.

    My grandmother is a *** hag for Christ's sake who doesn't believe in gay marriage. She has a gay grandson who lives with his partner. She loves him, no questions asked. In her mind civil partnership was equality. She is 90 years old and still goes down Rubys with a gay man now and again.

    My mother is pretty similar. I can tell you right now that there would be no fear in my mind if I had to come out as gay to her. Yet she falls into the same category.

    Now, in light of me reading about Prop 8, I can tell you I *DO* agree with you that supporting Prop 8 is homophobic.

    The big issue with this is that the community now doesn't want you to be in a position of power if you had free speech and/or will if it didn't fall into lovely little perfect boxes where all the good people are shining beacons of pure Jesus love and the bad people are Republicans. I don't think for one second he was going to use his position of power to quash the rights of LGBT employees at Mozilla or their projects and partners.

    Where does that end? Now if the next CEO is Republican and he gives money to a candidate that the community doesn't like, apparently you have to apologise or resign. Presumably this could happen with a Democrat candidate also. For instance, Hillary Clinton doesn't believe in same sex marriage... should the next Mozilla CEO be allowed to support Hillary Clinton?

    But now you are forcing him to resign on the basis that because he supported something completely external to company policy he must not be able to separate politics from his business.
     
    Last edited: 5 Apr 2014
  18. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    This is not about his beliefs or not being a shining beacon of pure Jesus love. He can believe what he wants to believe. He just cannot impose his beliefs on others. With his donation to Proposition 8 that is exactly what he strived to do. If someone strives to impose his personal beliefs on society at large, how can we know that he won't strive to impose it on the company he leads?

    This is not about being unable to separate politics from business (which is inherently impossible anyway), but being unable to separate his personal beliefs from other people's.
     
  19. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    No one forced him to do anything, he or the company he works for decided it would be in the best interest of the company if he stood down, i didn't care either way.

    In the end a decision was made that if he carried on his tenure it would adversely effect the company, probably because the public would have difficulty believing it's possible to compartmentalize personal opinions in everyday life.
     
  20. law99

    law99 Custom User Title

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    But as CTO was he doing this already?

    Personally I see the issue as whether he was doing this as: I Creator of JavaScript, Master of Mozilla hereby support prop 8, or as, I Brendan Eich hereby support prop 8.

    There seem to be people he has worked with that believe he very much can, has, shall and will remain able to separate his personal beliefs from his work life.

    Ah sorry, knee jerk quote.

    I understand that. Yet, it was the board who put him there. And now, two people who started this said they never expected it to go this far with completely separate companies suddenly deciding that you should use Firefox to look at their site because someone in charge there did something they don't agree with?
     
    Last edited: 5 Apr 2014

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