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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?"
to have a miserable life, i.e. to be married.
They're opposed to Prop 8 yet in 2008:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pre...
Remember that Obama was also opposed to gay marriage when Eich was. Doesn't seem to have bothered too many people.
Do you have ESP?
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.
If such ideology as yours was what this world really wanted, we would still be trading with an Apatheid government in South Africa. As you note, history is full of examples where economic pressures have been used to create social change, but unlike you I see that as a normal expression of the hallowed "free" market. I don't see anyone going to the guillotine, do you? Or are your just being hyperbolic in order to be completely out of our solar system?
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.
Sealed lips and a medium-sized monetary contribution is "virulent"? Please.
... considering marriage a "fundamental right" would seem a slippery slope. Does an atheist have a fundamental right to be ordained a priest?
To be clear, I think Eich was scapegoated, but am of the opinion it is unfair to deny marriage to gays. I am only concerned here with what seems to me to be excessively broad definitions and the fallout that may result.
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.
Sorting proponents into governments that test them is the penetration of the Enlightenment into the social sciences. This allows the social sciences to progress beyond "correlation doesn't imply causation" to perform ethical experiments on human subjects that, because there are experimental control groups, permits much stronger inference of causal laws in human ecologies (human societies) than do mere ecological correlations.
So what's not to like about locales, like the Mozilla Foundation or Google or even Silicon Valley, excluding from their midst those who are incompatible with the social experiment that most people want to perform on themselves? After all, it is only by consent of the governed that a jurisdiction can be deemed legitimate.
Here's the problem:
In the modern zeitgeist it is considered the moral equivalent of Satanism to practice what is called "the politics of exclusion". Why? Because it "discriminates".
These fuzzy tropes forget one thing, however -- and it is something that anyone who is involved in technology should understand in their gut:
It is only by "excluding" various hypotheses that we can "discriminate" between truth and falsehood in the real world.
But no one wants to admit that their religion might be false -- including those whose religion is the de facto state religion that enforces "inclusion" and prohibits "discrimination".
Seastead this.
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.
But I have the perception, rightly or wrongly, that nearly every top executive position (even at nonprofits) pays a salary that is not commensurate with the person's work or value to the organization, and that these positions are instead used as a reward for people who the company directors happens to like.
So, I am comfortable with Eich, or even someone more hateful, being paid a high but appropriate salary for doing lots of good work for the company. But if, as I believe, most of the CEO's salary is a reward from the board of directors for being the person they like the most, then I feel justified in throwing a fit if I don't like him the most.
Immediately before being promoted, Eich had been the Chief Technology Officer at Mozilla. He's also the guy who invented Javascript. Do you really think he didn't make an technical contribution to Mozilla's products?
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.
I completely agree. Legal marriage should be opposed whether it's for gay or straight couples. Why is it the government's business who I've devoted my life to? Why should I be taxed differently because my significant other and I decided to sign a piece of paper? It's an archaic social custom that should have no place in modern society.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
It's actually a serious argument:
There are really two different issues here, one is entirely around the meaning of the word marriage and the other has to do with rights taken away and then handed back as privileges - with strings attached.
The latter is easier to solve in theory - just keep our rights to start with. You may pay taxes and mandatory fees for benefits at work - and then be told you must be in a state-blessed marriage in order to collect those benefits. This is obviously unfair and wrong. But this could be straightened out relatively simply, by not mandating these arrangements in the first place. There is no reason for the system to take money out of your paycheck only to hand it back if and when you file the forms and show the state blessing - it's entirely unnecessary. You should be allowed to keep your money and buy what you want with it, what suits your needs, it should not be a situation where you have all these people, this bureaucracy, all up in your business all the time.
The first issue is less tractable, I fear people will still be having that argument generations hence. But the wonderful thing is, if you solve the second issue as I have suggested, the first issue just becomes unimportant. Sure, people will disagree heatedly but with the government no longer involved, defining who is right and who is wrong, robbing Peter to pay Paul's bills, there is no longer any urgency to the argument, no political dimension. No one faces loss of their rights or their livelihood over it. It becomes, as it should be, a discussion for church not a struggle to direct the power of the state against those who disagree with you.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Apart from it being a Religious term (in the Bible, it mentions that marriage is between a husband and wife, being man and woman). That's part of the base scripture. Apparently the word of God.
In case you weren't aware, there have also been marriages outside of the influence of the Judeo-Christian tradition. While people in the Middle East were writing the Bible, there was still stuff going on in the entire rest of the world.
You bring up two topics: the morality of gay marriage, and the completely separate issue of the financial and legal benefits the the USA government bestows on married couples.
You make a persuasive argument against the government giving special rights and benefits to married couples that are denied to other long term, stable relationships. I agree with you that the government has no business doling out special rights to some couples because they made a commitment called marriage while similar commitments are denied these benefits.
It is my opinion that government should not give any financial benefits simply because your are married. Further, I think the government should get out of the marriage business completely. Marriage, outside of religious ceremonies, should be replaced by civil contracts.A lot of people don't really understand that when they get married they are agreeing to a huge and convoluted legal contract. A range of simpler contracts should be available that spell out the rights and privileges of both partners: power of attorney, child custody and guardianship, shared assets, and how to dissolve the partnership would be some of the key things to include in these contracts..
The moral issue is should being gay be treated like being a red head, or being black, or being white, that is something that the law should prevent everyone from discriminating against.
In this case I disagree with you and say that being gay should be something that no one, and no law, can use as something to justify discrimination. Being gay is like having blue eyes, something you are born with. All government programs, civil rights, etc... should be available to gay people just as if they were straight.
And hospitals do NOT decide the rules about who can visit and who has the right to make medical decisions those are all laws - laws that currently discriminate against a lot of people. rules governing wills, child custody, etc... are also generally unfair to anyone other than straight couples.
Gay people are not forcing their morals on anyone. They are asking to be treated equally before the law. Asking for people to stop discriminating against yourself is not forcing your morals on anyone; it is asking for the law to be fair.
Finally, gay people are not "greedily" grabbing benefits they are just asking for the same benefits others already have, and you so eloquently argued that everyone should have. Are you saying that all committed, long term relationships should get benefits, except gay ones? That would hardly be moral.
Anarchists never rule
Nothing, thanks for asking.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
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.