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Mozilla Puts New Money To Use Fighting For 'Internet Health' (cnet.com)
Stephen Shankland, writing for CNET: Mozilla is marshaling public support for political positions, like backing net neutrality, defending encryption and keeping government surveillance from getting out of hand, says Denelle Dixon-Thayer, Mozilla's chief legal and business officer. The organization is funding the efforts with revenue from Firefox searches, which has jumped since 2014 when it switched from a global deal with Google to a set of regional deals. Mozilla brought in $421 million in revenue last year largely through partnerships with Yahoo in the US, Yandex in Russia and Baidu in China, according to tax documents released alongside Mozilla's 2015 annual report on Thursday. Pushing policy work brings new challenges well beyond traditional Mozilla work competing against Google's Chrome browser and Microsoft's Internet Explorer. They include squaring off against the incoming administration of Donald Trump.
At first, less politics more code might sound productive. But in actuality, it's "keep your nose to the grindstone and don't stick your nose in the policies made by those above your pay grade". Of course, those policies will have tremendous effects on us, and we should have a say. All the code we can make won't necessarily change them.
The classical Greek definition of "idiot" is someone who declines to take part in democratic government. It is no less so today.
Bruce Perens.
It falls under participation in politics. Forcing out CEOs who publicly support policies repugnant to the organizations own membership and supporters is good politics. You have freedom of speech, but we have freedom to decline to be associated with you and your speech.
Bruce Perens.
The trouble here is that you don't personally find Eich's politics repugnant. If, instead, he was actively supporting white supremacists, you wouldn't see anything wrong with either the criticism Mozilla received, nor would you so vocally object to Eich's resignation at every opportunity. (This is not to imply that one hate group is less repugnant than the other.)
There's no hypocrisy there, except in your own imagination. I can't even begin to guess how you came that that particular conclusion.
Required reading for internet skeptics
It's not hypocrisy, nor is it either a safe space nor an echo chamber. That's silly rhetoric.
A CEO is the public face of your company. He or she has to represent your brand. Obviously Mozilla's brand was not to prevent Gay couples from having the right to marry.
Bruce Perens.
The trouble here is that you don't personally find Eich's politics repugnant.
The actual trouble here is that people want to attack a person who's done something on their own time, without using the company as a mouthpiece to promote their own private views. If he was supporting white supremacists I wouldn't have a problem with it either, because as a private citizen, he has the right to do whatever they please. Now on the other hand if he turned around and started using Mozilla as a mouthpiece to promote those views, I'd have a problem with it.
What continues to surprise me is the number of people that believe that a person should be shamed/punished/etc for what they do as a private citizen. But then stand up and clap their hands when a company turns around and starts pushing political propaganda.
Om, nomnomnom...
When you're the public face of an organization, you don't have that luxury.
Jared Fogle, for example, wasn't using Subway to promote child molestation, but Subway gave him the ax anyway. They dropped him even before there was any trial! Where they wrong to disassociate themselves from Fogle? Would you still say:
I wouldn't have a problem with it either, because as a private citizen, he has the right to do whatever they please.
What if your kid's school teacher openly supported NAMBLA?
Of course, Eich resigned on his own because he believed that was in the best interest of the organization. Mozilla didn't "force him out" like you seem to believe. It was the users who shouted, en masse, that they don't want a hatemonger leading Mozilla.
What continues to surprise me is the number of people that believe that a person should be shamed/punished/etc for what they do as a private citizen.
How, exactly, do you think societies work? Do you think free speech guarantees you freedom from the consequences of that speech?
Required reading for internet skeptics
I only have the answer to why they have investments. Because they have a significant amount of money on hand, and are holding it in the way that makes the most money for a project. When you put money in a bank, they invest it too. This way generally makes more money than interest from the bank.
Don't know that either, but I can say why they do it. Diversification of your financial holdings over multiple currencies and over multiple national economies protects you from a crash in a single economy. The reliability of the US economy is no sure thing at the moment.
Yes. In this case I think it's a difference in tax status between the non-profit and the operating company. Sometimes it's done to keep the trademarks from being assets that could be placed in peril in a lawsuit. For-profit entities sometimes offshore the intellectual property rights as a tax shield, but I don't think that's happening here.
Bruce Perens.