Comment by byuu | Hacker News Reader

Comment by byuu | Hacker News Reader

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> so we can't talk about them

You're absolutely perfectly fine talking about them. Anyone who disagrees doesn't value the freedom of speech. (And sadly, that's becoming quite common on college campuses these days. But I don't align myself with them.)

> vote against them, or donate to organizations opposing them, is sickening.

Voting to take rights away from consenting adults because you don't agree with their lifestyles is sickening.

I'm not sure how I'd feel about a donation to an organization opposing rights in general. But this was specifically targeted toward persuading voters (with shady, misleading and outright false advertisements) to vote to take away rights. Not quite the same as just saying "we oppose this."

This crossed the boundary from speech and became action. A very harmful action that demeaned 5-10% of the population.

> Imagine your being ousted from your job for donating to the EFF

False equivalence. The EFF isn't lobbying to strip a minority of their pre-existing rights, because "eww" or "religion."

Further, he wasn't ousted from his job. People complained, so he chose to resign. If it's freedom of speech for Eich to make that donation, then it's freedom of speech for people to protest that donation. You can't eat your cake and have it too.

> Donating to a mainstream cause is a perfectly normal thing to do.

Majority support does not justify what is right.

> I hope that society never moves against any of your current positions and retrospectively calls you a monster.

I've gotten into plenty of trouble and lost supporters over my positions against political correctness. I don't think I'll ever be in a position as powerful as CEO, though.

Still, I hope no one ever pesters me to resign from my job. However, I would never, ever vote to take rights away from a group of people I disliked, unless there were lack of consent issues (eg peodphilia) involved. So I don't believe I'll ever be in the same exact position as Eich.

Eich was hounded out of his job. It's absolutely clear from the sequence of events. You can argue that he quit his job to end the controversy, but that amounts to the same thing.

In 2008, Eich's was the mainstream view. Even Barack Obama stated in 2008 that he believed marriage should be between a man and a woman.

It's ridiculous that someone should be considered an unacceptable type of person to be CEO because he donated $1,000 to a successful, mainstream proposition that passed, in a state of 35 million people, on an issue that Obama also agreed with! Nor did the bill "take away rights". Did all those people who quit the board or said nasty things about Brendan Eich vote for McCain-Palin in the 2008 elections? Highly doubtful.

Mr. Eich in fact stated that his personal views would not color his performance in a leadership position, and that he had nothing against homosexuality. When it became clear that he could not shake the controversy, he chose the high moral ground of resigning.

Losing this man, the inventor of Javascript and a key player at Mozilla.org for many years, was a real blow to the organization. It's never a good idea to politicize a technology organization whose mission is to create free and open tools for everyone, to be used all over the world by all sorts of people.

> Eich was hounded out of his job. It's absolutely clear from the sequence of events.

Oh, absolutely. No question. If not for the outrage, he wouldn't have resigned. My point is that he could have stayed on if he wanted to. They may have lost ~10% of their userbase, but they're hemorrhaging users at such an alarming rate these days that it'd hardly be a blip on the radar.

What is your alternative? Why is it free speech for Eich to donate to Prop 8, but not free speech for others to decry said donation? Should they have called for his job? Probably not, but as evidenced by Eich, people are allowed to say terrible things.

> In 2008, Eich's was the mainstream view.

Popular opinion is not a justification for discrimination.

The litmus test I go by is: "does it harm non-consenting living beings?", and if the answer is no, then I don't have to like it, but it's not my business to interfere.

> Even Barack Obama stated in 2008 that he believed marriage should be between a man and a woman.

Obama was for marriage equality in the '90s, but he was running for president in 2008. He knew he could lose the presidency if he said he supported it in 2008. I don't know how I feel about that, but I think I'll take it over McCain/Palin winning.

It's the same way we pretend every US president in history was a Christian. Yeah, and I have a bridge to sell you in New York.

> he chose the high moral ground of resigning.

The one thing I will give him definite praise for is his honesty: he could have easily donated $1000 to the HRC, said his views evolved, and the controversy would have vanished overnight. None of us could prove he was lying. I wish his views really had changed, and I would have forgiven him, but barring that, I respect that he's at least remained honest about all this.

> It's never a good idea to politicize a technology organization whose mission is to create free and open tools for everyone

In general, I don't like the idea of people being forced out of their jobs because of something they did in their spare time. (Especially around drug use.) I also understand that popular opinion could make the right thing to do that which would end up costing one their job. And indeed, almost no one called for his resignation prior to his promotion to CEO. I can sort of see the argument for how a CEO can represent the face of the company, but it's still a bit troubling. None of us are perfect, and a huge amount of people will protest absolutely anything you do.

But what I do know at the end of the day, is that people were absolutely justified in calling out what he did as completely unconscionable. And they had every right to boycott Firefox in response.

At least in my case, I never called for him to be fired. The damage to me was done when the board promoted him, knowing about this in advance as they did. I tried (and continue to try) to stop using Firefox, but Chrome is just so. awful. that I keep finding myself forced back. My kingdom for some real competition in the browser market.

>> The damage to me was done when the board promoted him

How was that damaging to you? Did he take your job?

Why do you constantly assume that he voted to take away rights? If you've been paying attention to what he did do in relation to same-sex couples you'd know what he has been working for years to get them equal rights. But through other means. This is hardly the same man that was portrayed in the attacks.

Your entire argument is based on a false assumption that just because he doesn't think redefining marriage is the only way to get those rights that he wants to take rights away.

There is a base assumption that anyone who disagrees with redefining marriage is unacceptably evil and wants to strip rights from a minority. This is false.

Redefining marriage is not a right, it's a tactic to give same-sex couples the same rights as married couples. Not everyone agrees with this tactic.

And guess what, the redefinition of marriage complete is now across the entire country and these people still don't have equal rights in many areas! Maybe he was on to something?

Don't assume someone is fighting against you just because he doesn't agree with a particular tactic.

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