There was just some hateful stuff that came from both sides that really uncovered some toxic personalities in the FF legion.
Really wish they'd focus on one mission (making the web free) and not address anything else.
The main reason Brave is used and recommended is because a lot of people don't want to bother installing plugins. At least 90% of recommendations for that browser I've seen mention this as reason. Meanwhile most people either don't like the new Firefox UI or just don't care.
And I agree, FF Send was great. It was really convenient to transfer a big file in a pinch without having to setup some cloud sync app with registration etc.
Yeah, that’s not gonna happen. They would antagonize their biggest “donor” google.
And god knows they really need that huge yearly money influx to whatever the heck they do with that money.
I don't feel bad for this guy - He says and does things regularly that are hurtful to society with no signs of becoming a better person.
> His posts on Twitter have expressed skepticism about many prevailing assumptions around the pandemic, including the effectiveness of masks and the honesty of Anthony Fauci.
Oh no! What a bigot for having questions and skepticism about many prevailing assumptions around the pandemic!!
Imagine how much better everything would be if everybody would just agree all the time without any skepticism?
Eich is a visionary and a talented engineer, that's all I ask of him when it comes to webtechs.
Right now the current "better persons" team at Mozilla is certainly running Firefox into the ground...
He may be wrong about all of this, but I don’t think we’ll be able to speak confidently about societal harm until this has all played out and can be viewed with the benefit of hindsight.
They're going to struggle to focus on their mission with friends like that.
That said, I agree that Moz have failed to find a stable business model,which is a pity.
Not only they failed to find a sustainable business model, they completely failed in their mission of promoting a privacy-focused browser. The users couldn't care less on this message or 'advantage' and are dumping them for Chrome.
The only message Mozilla has stuck to for years is 'if you can't beat them, join them.' (and get paid by them).
I think the gays can cop it.
> you are gay, or your sibling is gay, or your best friend is gay
At least one of those is true.
Mozilla is there to build browsers. Politics should have been left at the door. Instead it wasn't and so Firefox happened and then Brave happened.
I think you misunderstand Mozilla. Just have a look at their mission statement[0], and their manifesto[1]. Mozilla's goal is not "build the best browser and get the most market share". Their goals are inherently political, and building a browser is just part of how they try to achieve their goals. To expect that the people working for such a political organization with such a strong ideology is pretty bizarre to me.
In response to the manifesto I'll ask how recent that manifesto and mission statement is? Surely they weren't always a politics first, software second organisation? They must have started out as free software and then morphed into what they are now at some point.
Or was it that case that the politics was there but it was that that changed?
0. https://www.protocol.com/mozilla-plan-fix-internet-privacy
It's only politics when it's "other people's problems I don't care about", it seems.
What’s the difference between dislike and disagree with? Ginsberg and Scalia were Supreme Court justice’s know for this. Disagreeing with something, even fundamental, doesn’t mean people need to dislike each other.
Imagine, for a moment, this idea was placed on religious belief. Should people working for someone with a different religious affiliation assume their boss dislikes them?
I appreciate this is a hot topic. I just don’t like where we are going as people when we treat disagree as if it’s dislike and act on that.
You can disagree with someone who believes in slavery, and you are free to still like them if you want, sure.
But if it was me in your place, even if I liked that person, I still would not want to work for them based on their actions. And I think this is a fair position for anyone to take.
Or if you are saying it is conceivably possible that Brendan* likes gay people, also I’d say sure. Actually it’s likely he likes at least one certain closeted repressed gay person in particular, I’d guess. Still, it’s reasonable to not want to work for such a person who takes such actions.
A core thing at issue here is right and wrong and lifestyles. No matter what I think, there are people who disagree on this. I’ve been hard pressed to get folks to share a logical reasoned case for their take. It’s very much about belief and assumptions.
Is it time we divide up based on some issues like this or try to destroy “the other side”? It should like that’s what’s being said.
Please note, my take on this here is how we as a society deal with these disagreements.
As to flipping it around, I get that but didn’t really follow how that helps. Bigots would be perfectly free to not want to work for a non bigot if they want… and they can try to get others onboard with joining them to ask the leader to step down.. good luck with that though. There’s a certain evil to being a bigot that goes beyond just disagreement and dislike.
But you're not alone. That year lots of users dropped Firefox.
I wish all disagreements didn't have to be framed in such stark terms.
I don't live in or care much for California, so I had no dog in the fight, but I also did not like the gang-up on Eich and I don't understand the argument that he had to be kicked out because of how people might feel - it seems like it's the default position to work for someone who thinks you shouldn't have some right or another, or some other person should have more rights than you. It did not affect my usage of Firefox.
I did eventually download Brave and I use it for maybe a quarter of my web browsing, but that happened because a site I like stopped working in Firefox. I use Edge for a lot of other stuff - known safe sites, basically. I use Firefox simply out of inertia and because I like NoScript and the exact way NoScript works. A lot of the stuff I like about it is gone now, as they keep removing features I use. I don't have any affection for Mozilla or Firefox anymore. Metrics-based development is always a fool's errand - removing feature after feature that 1% of your install base uses is a great way to lose half your users when you remove > 50 features.
In the end, I don't think Mozilla understood where their strength came from. They weren't installed by default. They didn't have massive marketing campaigns like Google/Chrome. They weren't bundled in installers. They had one thing: power users, and power users evangelizing to their friends and family. They've alienated power users, and now all that's left is people running on inertia and people really worried about open source. Not a winning combination.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8
Refusing to follow someone isn't ganging up on them. Curtailing their civil rights is.
Eich chose to resign.
> He publicly materially supported it.
Nobody knew about Eich's 2008 donation until 2014, years later. Many people who worked with him and knew him for years, like Baker, expressed surprise and said they had no idea he held these views.
> Eich chose to resign.
Eich was allowed to resign rather than be fired. When you have the board and Executive Chairwoman saying that it's impossible for you to work there with your views, and you resign, that's not exactly a free choice.
> Curtailing their civil rights is.
I don't think we can put things beyond debate simply by declaring them a civil right. The entire debate was over whether it was/should be a right or not. I don't think this is a productive way to frame it. It just leads to argument rather than discussion, and persecution rather than post-victory rapprochement. I also don't think it's uncommon. I find it hard to think of someone I've worked for or even know that would not like to curtail what I regard as my civil rights in one area or another.
The LA Times reported Eich's donation in 2012. Mozilla leadership including Baker knew about it before 2014. Eich knowing not to broadcast his support for discrimination is the minimum expected of most employees.
Eich himself said he resigned because the controversy was hurting Mozilla. He also said it would have been illegal to fire him.
Baker publicly supported Eich's promotion.[1] At least before he botched a predictable and winnable PR crisis. Other people did say his actions and standing by them meant he couldn't credibly promote Mozilla's claimed values. And his belief his discrimination wasn't discriminatory called into question how he could do the CEO's job of preventing discrimination. But basically no one said he couldn't work there with his views. He remained CTO after his views and actions were widely known. And board members asked him to stay in another role after he resigned.
The US Supreme Court recognized marriage as a civil right in 1967. It's the law of the land. And same sex marriage was legal in California before Proposition 8. Believing reducing some people's rights is justified doesn't make it not reducing their rights. And calling it what it is isn't persecution.
I've never worked for someone who publicly said I should be a 2nd class citizen. I feel sorry for you if you have. It sounds like you might have your own definition of civil rights though.
Ask yourself why there is no outrage at every company that posts rainbow flags on US brand pages but refuses to do the same on their UAE brand pages.
In a nutshell: I am glad that the Christian monks kept the work of all those 'evil pagans' through the dark ages. The candle of Western Civilization could have gone dark if they had religiously burned the works of those they disagreed with... I worry this is a direction we are headed as a cyber culture.
I want discourse because that is how we learn and bring others to enlightenment. I (correctly) saw that move with firefox as a broad move in the general us political ecosystem to "unperson" those on the right/left who don't feel the same as you. I.e. "Trump is Hitler", "Obama is a Terrorist" the schoolyard branding in concerning because it does not help any of us get better or connect on a human level.
I guess I feel like what happened with Brandon is a good example of that fear manifest.
What if, for example, my support of Edward Snowden makes me the next Emmanuel Goldstein, target of two minutes hate for the altar of some agenda? That scares the shit out of me- I don't like it.
How about standing for leaving politics at the door of the work environment and freedom of expression?
> FWIW, I would presume the answer is "because most people don't realize that companies might be doing that"; however, I also take issue with the example: not going out of your way to display support for something is, in fact, different than actively taking action to undermine it... someone who doesn't show a flag might still support something, but someone who actively donates against something clearly doesn't.
Once you've gone out of the way to show it on one account, going out of the way to not do it on another is essentially the same thing and hasn't drawn ire.
> You do realize that no one has suggested deleting all the copies of Firefox,
You're feigning ignorance and creating a strawman. The movement that forced Eich out advocates for censorship and destruction of ideas and information. You were the one who made up the story about deleting all copies of Firefox.
> Remember both that CTO is a a very public position for an organization like that
Now that is an argument. If the organisation has made efforts to climb into bed with a modern religion and the CTO commits a sin then yes, removal makes sense but it should never have got to this point.
> By saying that you have decided to stop using Firefox because the employees of Firefox should not have revolted against Brandon Eich, you are thereby not only cancelling the work of a number of people you disagree with
No "cancelling" as you put it and most likely as the person you are replying to understands it involves mob justice forcing people out of careers and forcing the removal of ideas from platforms. Deciding not to use something is a personal choice.
> Truly: all of your fretting over people destroying the work of the "evil pagans" is off topic, whether it makes you feel better to frame it like that or not.
When you make a three paragraph strawman argument it can seem that way but while "your truth" may be that it is unrelated, the reality is different.
> Ummm... are you missing that Brandon Eich made the first move here, taking action against gay people by fiscally
He expressed his political opinion through excepted channels. He didn't incite a mob. Again there's an argument he couldn't be at the head of an organisation with the religious connections it has but again it should never have got to that stage.