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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

I'm still a FF evangelist though it is getting harder by the day.

Eich should have realized that his actions as CEO of a highly visible entity would be viewed in a different light than if he were merely just another nobody. Missing that was his crucial mistake, he could have made the donation anonymously, but decided to do it in his own name making it a given that this would be associated with Mozilla. That was stupid.

But as it was he could have simply apologized and hunkered down, I suspect (based on board members' and Eichs' own statements) that it was the pressure from the employees that made him decide to resign.

Whether a proposition has a 50/50 split or not does not matter, if half your country is made up of bigots that doesn't mean that it isn't bigotry, it just means that you have a very large problem.

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He wasn't CEO when he made the donations in 2008, of course. Nor was he CEO when the donations came to light in 2012. Everyone at Mozilla knew about them when he was appointed CEO.

> I suspect (based on board members' and Eichs' own statements) that it was the pressure from the employees that made him decide to resign.

I worked on Firefox from 2000 and full time from 2005 to 2016. Your suspicion is completely wrong. All employees I knew, mostly on the engineering side, were happy with his appointment or at least didn't express any wish for him to step down. That includes the gay employees I knew.

The only Mozilla group that I know of who expressed a desire for him to step down were a handful of people in the Mozilla Foundation (who would not have been part of Brendan's org since he was CEO of the Corporation). They went public with it and got a big PR splash, which I think spawned this meme that there was a clamour of Mozilla Corp employees demanding Brendan's resignation. There was not.

You have posted many comments in this thread but apparently you weren't there and you aren't aware of basic relevant facts. Please show some humility.

The basic relevant facts that I'm aware of are those as reported in the various media and written up from the statements of the participants on the matter.

If those are not to be taken as authoritative then I think we may as well shut down HN because there is nothing that can be debated past that point.

I'm sure there are interesting and probably quite relevant details to be had but your word - an anonymous HN contributor to me - does not weigh as heavy as Eich's own statements on the matter.

Maybe it is you that should show some humility? Or maybe you should attach your name to your profile to show that you actually were in the board room at the time that this was decided. If Eich wanted to record a different history then he was entirely free to do so.

I clearly remember his statement of regret at the time, it seemed sincere as far as I could see and I think that he should have been given a fair chance, but I also understand how he may have decided to step down.

There are lots of stories about what happened in that boardroom meeting, all of them more or less plausible, until the participants speak up to contradict it I will stick to basing my views on the official version.

Eich wouldn't say he wouldn't do it again. He said he was doing a great job as CEO after days on the job.[1] He expressed "sorrow at having caused pain" not regret or apology. He said he wanted to be held accountable but not how.[2] I can understand how it was too little too late for some people.

[1] https://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-ceo-gay-marriage-firestorm...

[2] https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/

Fair enough.

Fair point. I've updated my HN profile. I'm Robert O'Callahan, formerly a Mozilla Distinguished Engineer. I wasn't on the board, but my claims are not about the board.

Pleased to meet you digitally, and thank you for that.

There are some articles which I've linked elsewhere which quoted some Mozilla employees at the time, which seemed pretty strong evidence to me (names, dates). Of course that is a fraction of the workforce there and it could have easily been blown out of proportion but there were at least some employees who thought like that.

Yes, I replied to your comment in which you linked to such an article. That is the "only Mozilla group that I know of" I referred to. It is worth noting (again) that those people were employees of the Foundation, not the Corporation, and so were not employees under Brendan ... a distinction that seems important, but was (misleadingly, I think) elided by press coverage and the comments of the employees themselves.

Thank you for retelling your 1st-person experiences. I had mistakenly assumed parent was at Mozilla since they spoke with authority, without using reported speech.

It's unfortunate that Brendan didn't get as robust a defense from his board as Ms. Rice got from Dropbox's at roughly the same time (and I'm no fan of Condoleeza Rice, the Bush IIs administration in general, or the "War on Terror". I believed then as I do now, that it was a wrong precedent to set)

> Missing that was his crucial mistake, he could have made the donation anonymously, but decided to do it in his own name making it a given that this would be associated with Mozilla. That was stupid.

So I guess this means no Mozilla leader should be making any private political donations at all, because if they do, Mozilla is at risk of losing half of its (US) leaders in red or blue states.

I sure hope the employees still have jobs, and if not, they have vetted their new board & CEOs past donations.

> Whether a proposition has a 50/50 split or not does not matter, if half your country is made up of bigots that doesn't mean that it isn't bigotry, it just means that you have a very large problem.

Do those employees/volunteers feel equally strongly about their "bigoted" user base? Or are they more morally flexible since that directly impacts their incomes?

> So I guess this means no Mozilla leader should be making any private political donations at all, because if they do, Mozilla is at risk of losing half of its (US) leaders in red or blue states.

They can, but they had better think this through. Note that money in politics is a problem to begin with, and that your regular votes are anonymous. If you decide to do so in a public way on a controversial subject then you take a risk.

> I sure hope the employees still have jobs, and if not, they have vetted their new board & CEOs past donations.

Writing this from liberal Europe, the American stance against gay marriage is very puzzling, though even here in the EU there are countries where this sentiment is still alive.

> Do those employees/volunteers feel equally strongly about their "bigoted" user base?

They typically don't know. By advertising it the rules were changed, and that was optional.

> Or are they more morally flexible since that directly impacts their incomes?

How many of the HN folk are in the MIC? How many of them are against anything other than heterosexual relationships? How many of them are racists?

We do not know. We do occasionally get a glimpse when someone deliberately or accidentally outs themselves as such and when they do so in the name of a company that tends to reflect badly on that company. Eich made his own bed and chose to walk rather than to lie in it.

Personally I think the bigger problem with Mozilla/FireFox is the lack of focus and as long as that isn't addressed it does not matter who is in the wheelhouse the only thing that it will affect is the rate at which the ship is going down. The way things are going there won't be another Google payday for Mozilla because there won't be a FireFox userbase left.

> Personally I think the bigger problem with Mozilla/FireFox is the lack of focus

You do realize that you're contradicting yourself, right?

Promoting cancel culture (ousting Eich) isn't exactly focusing on tech. Generally you can only pick one or the other

No, there is no contradiction.

The actions of the CEO and the actions of the employees are two entirely different things.

The CEO could have been just focused on tech and could have left his political flags in the proverbial closet. Instead he chose to bring them out.

Mozilla was already an entity that had made some pretty strong statements about diversity, inclusivity and their view of the open web.

If you then stir up a shitstorm you will find you can no longer effectively focus on the tech either.

So you can very well pick both: make all those statements, live by them, attract employees who see things likewise and then focus on the tech.

But that's a glass house of your own making and if you then start hurling bricks it will have a terrible effect.

He wasn't CEO during the prop. 8 campaign. I don't think we want everyone in tech permanently abstaining from politics just in case there might be a leadership role years later.

It was close enough that it mattered, four years to be precise. If it had been decades ago it likely would have been a different matter.

Dutch proverb: High trees catch a lot of wind.

If you become a high tree, in politics or as a CEO then your past will come under scrutiny, and what is found there may very well have a direct effect on your present day life.

> It was close enough that it mattered, four years to be precise. If it had been decades ago it likely would have been a different matter.

I highly doubt that.

2014-2008=6

It's "close enough" only because you're trying to save face from your incorrect implication/claim you've repeated several times across different comments in this thread that he was the CEO when he did the donation.

It's also worth pointing out that public opinion has swung decisively and dramatically in that intervening time period--at least 20 percentage points IIRC.

2014-2010 = 4.

It's close enough because right up until his apology Eich did not indicate in any way shape or form that he had changed his views on this. Only after it all blew up did he come with his apology. Sure, he wasn't CEO at the time he made his donation but when he stepped forward to become CEO he was well aware of his own position regarding this and knew that to effectively lead Mozilla would be impossible given his - apparently strongly held - views. At least, I'm assuming people do not donate to political causes they do not feel strongly about.

> So I guess this means no Mozilla leader should be making any private political donations at all, because if they do, Mozilla is at risk of losing half of its (US) leaders in red or blue states.

That's part and parcel the strategy of the left, shifting the Overton Window of what you're allowed to support publicly until anything representing traditional conservative values is safely out of range.

Trying to hold onto racism, misogyny, and homophobia as “traditional conservative values” is the problem here. There are plenty of conservatives that aren’t in that particular boat.

> Trying to hold onto racism, misogyny, and homophobia as “traditional conservative values” is the problem here.

Repeatedly framing opposing views as "racist", "misogynist", "homophobic" is a perfect example of this. Let's not speak up lest we get labeled with one of those.

I'm not aware of anything in this thread that has anything to do with race and yet that's the first word in the triumphant trio of your counters.

> I'm not aware of anything in this thread that has anything to do with race and yet that's the first word in the triumphant trio of your counters.

They tend to go together. I'll be happy to bet that a large fraction of the Eich defenders in this thread are just using him as a proxy because they sympathize with his viewpoints, and that you will find a disproportionally large overlap with the other viewpoints mentioned above.

They tend to go together because the left continuously lumps them together.

>They tend to go together. I'll be happy to bet that a large fraction of the Eich defenders in this thread are just using him as a proxy because they sympathize with his viewpoints, and that you will find a disproportionally large overlap with the other viewpoints mentioned above.

That's as may be. However, as someone who is significantly to the left of the Democratic Party on many issues, not least being that no one has the right to tell other consenting adults who and how they should love, I was left feeling somewhat uncomfortable with the firestorm over Eich's financial donations to a particular cause.

I'll expand on this as I don't wish to be misunderstood. I vehemently disagree with the idea that the government should restrict how, and with whom, we create and maintain relationships. That applies to all relationships, whether they be romantic, platonic, familial or business.

Given that Eich's donation to an anti-Prop 8 group goes against that belief, you'd think that I would applaud Eich's humiliation and ouster.

But I don't. While I certainly wouldn't invite Eich into my life or home because he is clearly not on the side of liberty and individual rights, I do not believe he should be judged on those stances in his professional life.

There is a difference between the personal and the professional, although they have been blurred (both incidentally via social media, and deliberately by those who seek to dehumanize those who disagree with them -- and that's not a right/left thing) in recent years.

Eich's performance as CEO of Mozilla should have been viewed by his statements/actions as Mozilla CEO. And unless he took steps to incorporate his personal biases into the management of Mozilla, they were of no relevance to his job as CEO.

And so, no. I completely disagree with Eich's personal homophobia. At the same time, our professional lives should be judged by our professional actions and statements, not our personal and political actions, unless there's overlap between the two.

I have no doubt that there are those who will disagree with the above. And I'm glad you do. In fact, I'd really like to hear your arguments as to why I'm wrong.

Because I believe that we, as humans, need to have our ideas, viewpoints and opinions challenged on occasion. Even more, just because someone disagrees with me, doesn't make them my enemy or a bad person.

IMHO, demonizing/dehumanizing those who disagree with you is not a reasonable response. Engaging in discourse so that the best ideas can rise to the top, ala Mill's Marketplace of Ideas[0] is a much better response.

In that light, please feel free to disagree with me. When you do, I'd only ask that you keep in mind that I'm human. With my own thoughts, ideas, biases and experience. I don't need to have everyone agree with me. Rather, I want others to consider what I have to say, just as I consider their thoughts and ideas.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketplace_of_ideas

That's a pretty balanced viewpoint, the only reason I disagree with it is that Mozilla went out of their way to appear as a progressive employer and player in the marketplace, to then hire a CEO as Eich makes light of that commitment. If Mozilla were any other ordinary tech company then I would agree with you. But this would be a bit like the CEO of Greenpeace going on a whale hunt for sport.

>Mozilla went out of their way to appear as a progressive employer and player in the marketplace

A fair point. Although I'd say that if Mozilla was actually being progressive, they would focus on Eich's professional decisions, not his personal ones.

Perhaps I misunderstand the term "progressive," but I see it as moving us forward in the context of our current culture/society and not as punishing anyone who refuses to conform. The former attempts to bring positive change, while the latter seems to be focused on stifling personal expression.

>But this would be a bit like the CEO of Greenpeace going on a whale hunt for sport.

I think that's a poor analogy for several reasons:

1. Mozilla is a software/technology organization, not an LGBTQ+ advocacy organization. Eich's personal political views are irrelevant to running a tech organization, while Greenpeace is specifically focused on the species diversity and the environment. Apples and oranges, IMHO;

2. Not only was Eich not CEO when he made such donations, I am unaware of any anti-LGBTQ+ actions by him in any of his working capacities at Mozilla (please correct me if I'm wrong). Or that Eich ever brought his thoughts about same-sex marriage into the office;

I may be way off base here, and have no experience working at Mozilla and don't know Eich at all (although the ideas behind the Brave browser disgust me, and as such, perhaps I should just pile on and demonize him just for that).

Edit: Fixed spacing.

It's pretty easy to find quite a few publications from Mozilla about their high standards and commitment to workplace diversity, they go out of their way to advertise this, one anecdote in this thread has an interesting bit from a person interviewing with Mozilla that I have never seen or heard about in any other company. They're a pretty large outlier in this respect compared to other businesses, though I suspect that Google and Apple are pretty similar in general but without the shouting it from the rooftops component.

Agreed Brave is a terrible concept.

Please explain how refusing to give equal rights to homosexuals is not homophobic.

Ok let’s leave that one out. Is the claim then that misogyny and homophobia are traditional conservative values?

> That's part and parcel the strategy of the left, shifting the Overton Window of what you're allowed to support publicly until anything representing traditional conservative values is safely out of range.

I strongly disagree: political polarization is not limited to the left. The right has used similar polarizarion and smear campaigns for decades in order to turn out single-issue voters: any politicians who is remotely pro-choice becomes anathema, regardless of the rest of their platform. Hillary Clinton was so effectively smeared, in 2016 a lot of voters disliked her, but couldn't articulate why. Since Reagan, the political Overton window in the US is has been sliding rightwards - not left.

Also, I am on the left.

No, only supporting the wrong opinions is career limiting. Supporting the opinions that are clearly correct is fine.

> Eich should have realized that his actions as CEO of a highly visible entity would be viewed in a different light than if he were merely just another nobody. Missing that was his crucial mistake, he could have made the donation anonymously, but decided to do it in his own name making it a given that this would be associated with Mozilla. That was stupid.

You do realize that all political donations in the US are not allowed to be anonymous right? This was years before citizens united, the only way to donate was through your own name.

Nothing you’ve said in this entire thread has made any sense, please reconsider demonizing someone you don’t know about issues you don’t understand with arguments that are false.

>Whether a proposition has a 50/50 split or not does not matter, if half your country is made up of bigots that doesn't mean that it isn't bigotry, it just means that you have a very large problem.

Morality (or what is "bigoted") is not a law of nature or an absolute, it's a societal convention (even murder is not an absolute "bad" - the US or Chinese or Saudi society deems capital punishment as immoral for example, whereas mine does not. Same for drug use or sale, and tons of other things, heck, even incest - not a big deal moraly in ancient Egypt, Westeros, and/or some parts of the rural South).

So it very much matters what the split was.

No, it does not matter. If you are on the wrong side of history the size of the company you keep is irrelevant.

The US has no problem with capital punishment last I checked (nor do they have a problem with life imprisonment without a trial), maybe not the best example?

So basically, one shouldn't have wrong opinions, especially if they're publicly visible persons. Or rather, one is allowed to have wrong opinions (in private), but voicing them or goodness forbid, acting according to those, ist verbotten und un-Amerikane.

Wow, what a huge strawman.

No, it is fine if you have wrong opinions. But be prepared to get the flak associated with those.

Nobody forced Eich to make a donation, but doing so publicly set him up for a confrontation with a substantial chunk of Mozilla's employees further down the line.

Just like a 'mild case of rape' could trip up a supreme court justice nominee. (Or at least, it should have.)

>No, it is fine if you have wrong opinions. But be prepared to get the flak associated with those.

That's not different than Stalinist Russia, the Inquisition, Nazi Germany, McCarthyism, some conservative backwater, etc.

If having "flak associated" with having wrong opinions is acceptable by your book, then those examples were all about free speech too. Their victims just got some heavy flak for their opinions.

Or is it bad only when it involves an execution? Rest assured than in most cases in those regimes an execution wasn't needed either. Most were just fired, or beaten up, or ostacized, or disallowed to advance etc., so that's ok I guess.

Doesn't even have to be the state to give "the flak". In the case of the Inquisition it was the church. And in other cases it has been an angry mob.

"wrong side of history"

What does that even mean? If Prop8 had won, would it have been on the right side of history?

> If Prop8 had won, would it have been on the right side of history?

Prop 8 did win. I don't know if it is still on the books; it was rendered inoperative due to a later Supreme Court decision based, so far as one can tell, on neither the text nor the intent of the Constitution. In other words, whether one agrees with the decision or not, it was unconstitutional.

Right, fair point, but I mean, the "wrong side of history" narrative tends to presume that either in the long run, whatever side is right will win, or that whichever side wins will be the right one. I think that's a very dangerous assumption either way that should really not be made into the core of a moral argument. Argue from universal principles, argue from universal emotions, argue from social health, argue from self-interest. But don't argue from your eventual presumed victory as if that's a reason in itself.

Not the OP, but "right side of history" sounds like shortcut for "opinions that I personally hold".

Do you offer the same full-throated support of pushing pro-abortion activists out of their jobs over their "wrong side of history" opinions.

>No, it does not matter. If you are on the wrong side of history the size of the company you keep is irrelevant.

Sorry, that sounds like something Nazis or the Maoists in the "Cultural Revolution" would say. "Wrong side of history" is historical determinism and teleologism.

Who is on "the wrong side of history" determined by consensus itself. And it can be as fickle and temporary as anything.

> the US or Chinese or Saudi society deems capital punishment as

moral, not immoral

>even incest - not a big deal moraly in ancient Egypt, Westeros, and/or some parts of the rural South).

Actually, the only places in the US where incest (between adults) is legal are New Jersey and Rhode Island.[0] Which isn't exactly the "rural south," no matter what the bad jokes say.

[0] https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/incest-laws...

>Actually, the only places in the US where incest (between adults) is legal are New Jersey and Rhode Island.[0] Which isn't exactly the "rural south,"

Yeah, but I was going for where it's moral/casual, not for where it is legal :-)

>Yeah, but I was going for where it's moral/casual, not for where it is legal :-)

Do you have data to support that? It may well exist, but I haven't seen anything that makes such a claim.

Nah, actually it appears to be the Midwest:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/atyhay/us_states_m...

> But as it was he could have simply apologized and hunkered down

Apologize for what? Exercising his right to political speech? His views represented the views of 52% of the Californian voters, i.e. the majority of voters. He's supposed to apologize for, literally, "agreeing with most people?"

If employees were revolting, perhaps him stepping down was the right choice. But suggesting that he should "apologize" for having political views some employees disagree with is completely unreasonable and indicative of a bullying power play.

Eich acknowledged he hurt people.[1] He didn't just hold a view.

52% of Californian voters didn't ask Mozilla employees to trust them with their livelihoods and the culture of the company. A lot of them changed their minds by 2014 too.

[1] https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/

Eich expressed "sorrow at having caused pain" which is not the same as acknowledging having "hurt people." This is pedantic but if we're going to talk about what someone else said, we should be precise.

I don't understand your point about 2014. Did Eich make more "controversial donations" that year?

> Eich should have realized that his actions as CEO of a highly visible entity would be viewed in a different light than if he were merely just another nobody.

You do realize that the donation occurred years before he was appointed CEO, right?

The sequence doesn't really matter though, does it? Eich felt strongly enough about the issue to donate money to it, then moved to become CEO of a company whose main charter is diametrically opposed to such a stance. I don't see how he would have been able to do that without it coming to a head sooner or later.

Also, and this is just a general observation, whether Eich would have been a good CEO or not is a complete unknown.

The other context that's important here is that it's a political topic where popular shifted massively in the same timeframe--circa 20 percentage points IIRC.

You're basically faulting him for taking a position which was reasonable and well within the center of public opinion at the time, which had subsequently become unpopular. And completely discounting the statement he made in the meantime showing that his opinions had, in fact, evolved over time, just as it had for a large fraction of the population.

(Another thing to point out is that the board was aware of the political contribution when he was appointed CEO, and did not feel it was any obstacle.)

Sorry, but no, it being a common opinion does not necessarily a reasonable one.

And one board member did resign over this prior to his appointment.

For us here in NL (where 90%+ of the population supports gay marriage) the whole idea that this is even worth arguing over seems strange, about as strange as coming out pro-slavery would be.

No board member resigned over any contribution I made. Stop making stuff up.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10654651 has more on the story you are misrepresenting even on its own terms.

You didn't answer his question. It seems clear that you did not know the timing, from the wording of your prior comment; you could acknowledge that.

I do realize the exact timing, Eich was CTO when he made the donations, was proposed to the CEO role when this was already known, accepted the nomination, one board member resigned in protest and then it all blew up and Eich resigned from Mozilla entirely 11 days later. Clearly, he did not make the donations in those 11 days.

I could have worded that comment a lot better but the intention seems pretty clear to me: Your actions as a CEO (even past actions) are going to be viewed in a different light than your actions as just another employee, even a co-founder, and what wasn't a problem before the CEO nomination quickly became a real problem, both for Mozilla the progressive entity as well as for Eich himself. Whether the donations were made several years, months or weeks before his tenure as CEO are not important.

The one thing I did get completely wrong - and which I will also acknowledge - is that I thought Eich could have legally made those donations anonymously (it was argued quite strongly during that time that this should be a possibility). I did not realize that this was illegal.

Your original comment is right there for everyone to read. In effect, what you've managed to argue here is first that the sequence of events is very important (your whole argument being that Eich "as the CEO" should have made his donation anonymously), and then, when called on that, that the sequence of events matters not at all.

Sometimes the best response to a rebuttal is just "TIL".

We're supposed to assume good faith, right? What he said he meant sounds plausible if I do.

This is a case of a commenter not knowing the sequence of events, realizing their mistake, and then pretending they were right all along.

Good faith doesn't mean "be very afraid to criticize others when they lie".

How could have have made the donation anonymously? Were FEC laws different at the time?

I'm sure Eich is smart enough to figure that one out. He could also have chosen to simply not donate given his position as CEO of a very visible entity.

He must feel pretty strongly about this subject given the fact that he could have recanted but he chose to walk instead.

He could also have chosen to simply not donate given his position as CEO of a very visible entity.

He would have needed a time machine or a crystal ball, since the donation was made in 2008 and he became CEO in 2014.

Fair enough, at the time he was 'just' a co-founder of Mozilla and had not yet made the play to become CEO in 2014, but as recently as 2010 he made another such donation, and there is zero evidence that he had changed his mind at the time.

Are you saying he should have broken campaign finance laws by donating under an alias?

The term "bigot" is highly loaded, ambiguous term and we seem to be using it in some random cancel-culture way that only applies to selective beliefs and ascribing some sort of "evil" property to the individuals we throw it at. I'll even go out and say that I am a bigot because I am unreasonable about a lot of different topics and points of view that I disagree with.

Here are a bunch of variations of the definition, for your perusal.

Oxford: "a person who is intolerant towards those holding different opinions."

Merriam Webster: "a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices. Especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (such as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance"

Cambridge: "a person who has strong, unreasonable beliefs and who does not like other people who have different beliefs or a different way of life: "

Dictionary.com: "a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion."

Collins: "Someone who is bigoted has strong, unreasonable prejudices or opinions and will not change them, even when they are proved to be wrong. "

Oxford Learners: "a person who has very strong, unreasonable beliefs or opinions about race, religion or politics and who will not listen to or accept the opinions of anyone who disagrees"

bigot : a person who is intolerant towards those holding different opinions (google definition). So maybe half of the country is made up of bigots but they are from both side. The other half are those that don't have strong opinions or simply don't care.

> he could have made the donation anonymously, but decided to do it in his own name [...] That was stupid.

Clearly it didn't work out well for him, but I'm not sure it rises to the level of stupidity so much as naïvety.

After all, he'd probably seen plenty of his peers publicly supporting other political causes without problems.

He just didn't realise the situation was "Leader of open source nonprofit, right-wing, publicly political, pick any 2"

Fair enough, though I tend to not see people in that income bracket as 'naive', it could very well have been, or a case of being completely tone deaf.

"political causes without problems"

If the political cause is to take away freedom from others, you can expect resistance.

Political support for causes is also an important freedom.

Indeed. Both of our statements are true!

“Denying a minority group rights shared by others” is not a political cause, it is hate, plain and simple.

What if he was donating to support miscegenation? Would that be over the line?

No. Anyone should be able to support any political cause at any time.

In a free society, we do not rely on force to produce morally correct behavior, except by force of state. We rely on law instead, which conversely requires complete freedom to participate in the democratic apparatus. Anything that messes with that messes with the very heart of a liberal democracy.

Freedom of association doesn't rely on law.

Corporations do not have unlimited freedom of association anyways. For instance, we already acknowledge that corporations can't refuse to associate with people on the basis of skin color. Saying that they could, say, fire a black CEO because otherwise their KKK customers would walk out, already doesn't fly; I don't see why it should have with Eich. I think racial equality is important, but political neutrality is at least equally important, because if that fails then liberalism is fucked, and liberalism is the best guarantor of racial equality as well.

Mozilla employees, volunteers, and others used their freedom of speech to say they would exercise their freedom to dissociate from Eich if he continued to support discrimination. Eich dissociated himself from Mozilla so the others wouldn't.

Yeah, "voluntarily."

Okay, let me explain that one. I know he says that, and I know Mozilla says that, but "I've decided to leave of my own accord" has simply become such a cliche that it can no longer be distinguished from firing.

In any case, this mostly just supports my view that people don't understand liberalism and why we need it. When an atheist and a christian can sit down together and have a peaceful family dinner without talking about politics, despite the fact that at least one of them thinks that it's a matter of utmost moral importance that the other change his mind, this is a miracle of social cohesion that is crucial to keeping society together. And we're losing it.

Prop 8 banned gay marriage but not gay domestic partnerships. It's a highly technical issue more nuanced than you are saying, despite the unnuanced views of many of its supporters.

Is it that surprising that a left wing organization (Free Software is an extremely left wing philisophy) expects left wing leadership?

> Free Software is an extremely left wing philisophy

That's revisionist history. Free software, and the greater "hacker" community, has historically been libertarian. It's only recently that authoritarian leftism took over.

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