Mozilla and Google's "Don't-Be-Evil" Bulldozer

An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla execs John Lilly and Mitchell Baker were interviewed at the WSJ's All Things Digital conference last week. In a wide-ranging conversation, they discussed the history of Firefox, proprietary versus Open Source development and the debut of Chrome and Mozilla's changing relationship with Google. A great interview. Well worth reading. There's video as well."

Comments

not very interesting

[bcrowell]

I disagree with the slashdot summary. The article is really not that interesting at all. It's very shallow, and it's aimed at a general audience, not a geek audience. I didn't learn anything from it at all. Seriously.

Re:Can't See Comment Titles

[mahaman]

Click the "change" button near the top and the headers will magically appear. It's a workaround, and no substitute for fixing the code, but...

Re:Can't See Comment Titles

[Fusen]

https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2797951&group_id=4421&atid=104421 official bug submitted

It's "Do No Evil", not "Don't Be Evil"

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, this is a pet issue of mine. C'mon people, get it right.

The motto isn't "Don't Be Evil".

It's "Do No Evil".

Somewhere along the way someone in the geek news misquoted it, and other people started misquoting, and now it seems to have stuck. Which really bugs me, because not only is it wrong, but it doesn't sound half as graceful either.....

*sigh*....

Re:It's "Do No Evil", not "Don't Be Evil"

[Silent Objection]

You've got that entirely backwards. The motto is "Don't Be Evil," and is commonly misquoted as "Do No Evil." http://investor.google.com/conduct.html

Re:It's "Do No Evil", not "Don't Be Evil"

[Alascom]

As a long time Googler, I can tell you the correct motto is "Don't be Evil".

Google's motto is 'Don't be Evil', and we have a similar motto for web developers: 'Don't be Eval'. (its kind of funny if you've ever dealt with security and user input, if not, you won't get it even if I explained it)

Saying 'do no evil' is being delusional and assuming you are perfect. Instead "don't BE evil" is about always trying to do the right thing, and when you occasionally screw up, accepting responsibility and trying to make things right.

Re:It's "Do No Evil", not "Don't Be Evil"

[JustinOpinion]

Actually, no.

The traditional expression may be "Do No Evil" (as in the wise monkeys stories), but Google's motto is specifically "Don't be evil".

The distinction is important, too. As far as I can tell, Google intended their motto to be an internal shorthand way of saying "let's run the company in a way that doesn't piss off users--give people what they want and make them have a good experience..." Hence "Don't be evil" -- don't do things that will make users say "this company is an asshole" (e.g. forcing lock-in, being "too corporate", nickel and diming customers...). Just read the story of how the motto was coined: it was an attempt by the engineers to remind the corporate types that they shouldn't mistreat customers or forget their quirky roots.

Google never intended their motto to mean that they would single handedly save the world, or even that none of their actions would have both pros and cons. People have unfortunately really latched onto this idea that Google claims to be saintly, and thus attack Google when any of their actions have a negative side.

People are free to complain about the things companies do. But it irks me whenever people twist other people's words to make their point. And the constant misunderstanding of Google's motto is one example of this.