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Was Eich a Threat To Mozilla's $1B Google "Trust Fund"?
theodp (442580) writes "Over the years, Mozilla's reliance on Google has continued to grow. Indeed, in its report on Brendan Eich's promotion to CEO of Mozilla, the WSJ noted that "Google accounted for nearly 90% of Mozilla's $311 million in revenue." So, with its Sugar Daddy having also gone on record as being virulently opposed to Proposition 8, to think that that Google's support didn't enter into discussions of whether Prop 8 backer Eich should stay or go seems, well, pretty much unthinkable. "It is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8," explained Google co-founder Sergey Brin in 2008. "We should not eliminate anyone's fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love." Interestingly, breaking the news of Eich's resignation was journalist Kara Swisher, whose right to marry a top Google exec in 2008 was nearly eliminated by Prop 8. "In an interview this morning," wrote Swisher, "Mozilla Executive Chairwoman Mitchell Baker said that Eich's ability to lead the company that makes the Firefox Web browser had been badly damaged by the continued scrutiny over the hot-button issue, which had actually been known since 2012 inside the Mozilla community." Swisher, whose article was cited by the NY Times in The Campaign Against Mozilla's Brendan Eich, added that "it was not hard to get the sense that Eich really wanted to stick strongly by his views about gay marriage, which run counter to much of the tech industry and, increasingly, the general population in the U.S. For example, he repeatedly declined to answer when asked if he would donate to a similar initiative today." So, was keeping Eich aboard viewed by Mozilla — perhaps even by Eich himself — as a possible threat to the reported $1 billion minimum revenue guarantee the organization enjoys for delivering search queries for Google?"
I understand the Church seems to think it has a monopoly on marriage as they are they most common institution to perform the ceremony. I also understand that many politicians will read the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman. However it is not the government's role to decide who can and can't be together.
So why not abolish marriages from governments?
Have the government only recognise civil unions. Treat all civil unions equally. Introduce a reciprocal relationship with the Church's marriage so that any marriage performed by the church ends in a government recognised civil union. Finally provide other non religious methods of registering civil unions.
Everyone's happy. Except for those in government who think the Church's view that two dudes shouldn't touch each either. But to them I say one of the tenants of modern democracy is the separation of Church and state and go find another job where your bias and lack of impartiality doesn't affect the people who you are supposed to represent.
Obama changed his mind, did Eich?
Either way is has no bearing on this issue as it's a company that can do as they wish. If Google wanted to cut them off for it, it's their right. Mozilla would collapse without google.
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
The link to the text "virulently opposed to Proposition 8" has nothing do with backing the claim that behaved "virulently". Weasel words: score -1 for the summary.
Better known as 318230.
Obama said that to get people like Eich to vote for him. After he was elected, he rightly threw them under the bus.
It must be terrible being bigots on the wrong side of history. No one gives you credit for standing up for what you believe in, all they think about is how you're the kind of douchebag who would take away something that costs you nothing but makes so many people so happy.
Have you heard of 'perspective'? It's a fascinating notion, really.
In addition to making certain flavors of artistic realism possible, it suggests that 'a guy facing pressure to resign from his cushy leadership gig' and 'being sent to the guillotine by fanatical Jacobins' may actually be meaningfully different things. Cutting edge theory stuff, here.
i'm sorry but i genuinely fail to see the importance of any of this "personal view" stuff. a technically-competent person who has been with it almost since the beginning: they were the CEO of Mozilla for about a week. someone as technically competent as brendan should have absolutely no difficulty firewalling personal from professional: why do we have to have idiots believe otherwise? could someone therefore please explain to me in simple language what's really going on?
If I still lived in California I would also have been "virulently opposed" to prop 8, but I hate the idea of judging someone's employability based on how they vote. To suggest that Google would treat Mozilla differently simply based on a single-issue stance of its new CEO is really selling them short. They invest in Mozilla for strategic reasons. (Mozilla isn't some sort of lazy couch-crasher that Google supports because of Mozilla's charming personality.)
And for that matter, I don't think we should judge products based on the ideology of the people who created them. To save us some time, I'll get straight to a Hitler example, noting that Hitler personally played an important role in the design of the VW Beetle. But hippies can still drive Beetles without thereby supporting Hitler.
The hypocrisy of two of OkCupid’s co-founders, Sam Yagan and Christian Rudder. We searched the federal campaign-contribution database and found that Yagan gave to two candidates who opposed same-sex marriage: $500 to then-Rep. Chris Cannon of Utah, a Republican, in 2004; and $500 to then-Sen. Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign who also opposed gay marriage at the time. According to Wikipedia, 7,001,084 people voted for Prop 8. Why do any of those people still have jobs? Shouldn’t they all be forced to resign? And why should they have the privilege of living in California at all? I say round them up and move them someplace where they won’t do any harm.” One reason why rich white guys like Eich are being targeted so viciously is that the many black churches who supported Proposition 8 — and, indeed, put it over the top — are out-of-bounds for criticism. Uh oh: 60% of Intel employees who donated in Prop 8 debate supported banning gay marriage. “Exit question: When do we get a list of Silicon Valley donors to Obama’s campaign circa 2008, when he was still formally against traditional marriage? True, he didn’t support Prop 8 or other attempts to legally ban SSM (a strong signal at the time that his stated view was a lie), but the whole point of the equal protection argument against traditional marriage laws is that you can’t reserve ‘marriage’ for straights without implicitly slapping a second-class-citizen stigma on gays. Obama was willing to do that, at least rhetorically. Let’s have the names.”
His donation to Proposition 8 has been known literally for years. He was CTO before his promotion to CEO; he had a seat on the board of the Mozilla Foundation, as is natural for its co-founder. None of his gay subordinates or coworkers seems to have levied any accusations of unfairness against him in all that time. One of the Mozilla bigwigs commented that she was surprised to learn of the donation when it came out, because Eich's friendliness and evenhandedness toward gay employees defied her stereotype of a Proposition 8 supporter.
Eich had no trouble getting along with those who didn't share his views, but it seems that not everyone reciprocated.
"So I don't want to talk about my personal beliefs because I kept them out of Mozilla all these 15 years we've been going," he told the Guardian. "I don't believe they're relevant."
If only everyone lived by this creed the world would be a better place. He was correct, his donation in private has NOTHING to do with the job he has been doing at mozilla for 15 years. Why only now do they make a big deal about it?
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Obama changed his mind, did Eich?
Obama didn't change his mind. He chose the most politically acceptable stance based on the climate at the time. Although I disagree with Eich, I trust him more than I do Obama. When Eichs views are unpopular and it may affect his job, he shuts his mouth. When Obamas views are unpopular and it may affect his job, he lies.
Those people aren't haters.
I'M a hater.
I hate you. All the gay activists, I hate you. I didn't use to. And note I don't hate gay people, just the gay activists (both straight and gay). Because you're now fucking evil. Not because you're gay. Not because of anything you do with your bodies in the privacy of your bedrooms.
But because you have castigated and caused to be fired ("resigned", my ass) someone because they dared to express themselves via the previously accepted political process by which people in a democratic society decide controversial issues like this. He gave money to a campaign -- a campaign that WON, by the damn way -- and you don't like it, so you hounded him out.
And now, I hate you. I've uninstalled Firefox, not that that will matter a whit, but I can't stand looking at it anymore, as it is a tool of people I loathe now.
I used to be against gay marriage, but only in the way I was also against gay-people-falling-into-lion-pits; I liked gay people and didn't want them to go through anything as horrible as marriage. Or lion pits. Now.... go ahead, get married. Suffer, fuckers. (But please don't fall into lion pits; you might land on the lion.)
So let me leave you with this thought...
First they came for the Gays, and I did not speak out -- because the Gays had become annoying bastards who never shut up no matter how much they gained, so frankly the fucking assholes had earned it.
Then they came for the Minorities, and I did not speak out -- because I was tired of paying for so many of them to sit at home and churn out babies, so getting rid of them would improve my life one hell of a lot, not to mention cut down the murder rate.
Then they came for the Feminists, and I did not speak out -- because they'd told me all my life that they didn't need a damn stinking man to protect them, so I didn't protect them.
Then they came for me -- and offered me the position of running the death camps where the Gays, Minorities, and Feminists were being exterminated, and I took the job, because hey, they'd told me I was evil all my life... and now I would teach them the true meaning of the word.
And how is your fight against heterosexual marriage going?
Since there is no credible movement to end legal marriage for opposite sex couples the only equitable approach the government can take is to extend marriage rights to cover same sex couples.