Did Eich use his position to advance his advocacy? That's really the only question of merit. If he applied his views to hiring or firing decisions, that's an HR and legal matter all of its own.
If for instance valuable members of the org quit on it, recruiting becomes noticeably harder, Mozilla's PR is impacted and investors aren't happy about it, I'd assume that's enough to ask him to step down.
I trust the leadership of Mozilla a fair bit less than previously and I believe it at least now has a toxic work environment I also would probably not like to work for.
I still do support Mozilla projects, but I am far more careful of that today.
Is a good or a bad thing ? Honestly I don't think Mozilla would have grown as much without all the social clout it has. There's no denying it has a tremendous effect on the pool of candidates, and the users choosing to support the company even as other products can be objectively better.
As you say it cuts both ways as they now have a kind of moral handcuffs limiting the views and moral/political positions they can have at the leadership and PR level. I personally see it as net positive, but we can agree to disagree.
Especially if there are any moral "handcuffs" as you say, because that would be an obvious contradiction to their stated values which I would argue people will notice.
The rules of PR demand that you are less free with what you communicate and it also demands you to lie. Many opportunities that Mozilla had were lost without any gain.
Hard to believe that Eich discriminated against gay people like you suggested. And I feel that isn't even the issue of those that complained here.
We've potentially seen a similar thing play out with 37 signals and a third of employees leaving ship after they felt betrayed by the leadership's personal positions.
I personally didn't see Eich as a good leader at the stage they were, and while not being impressed by the current leadership either I'm not sure his ousting had that much impact in the grand scheme of things.
[1] https://www.politico.com/blogs/ben-smith/2008/08/obama-says-...
he himself actually literally said as much: "Our mission is bigger than any one of us, and under the present circumstances, I cannot be an effective leader. I will be taking time before I decide what to do next." [1]
it was reported on beforehand [2], but as far as I'm reading, there wasn't a serious outcry until 2014, six years after the donation, after he was appointed as CEO (and subsequently ousted)
as for politicians, I think they're by definition mealy-mouthed, and they often just say what they think people want to hear at any given time
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20200711120251/https://abcnews.g...
[2] https://www.thepinknews.com/2012/04/04/javascript-inventor-g...