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I, personally, have an issue with witch hunts, with McCarthyism, with bigotry.

Eich's persecution for his beliefs was bigotry.

Everyone complicit in it is a bigot.

One man can't be CEO because other people complained on the Internet. A great many people temporarily couldn't get married because that one man paid good money to make it so.

And your sympathies lie with the poor persecuted CEO. Won't someone think of the rich white guy for once?

> A great many people temporarily couldn't get married because that one man paid good money to make it so.

That is not remotely true. There were thousands of people stumping and many people donating tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Eich's donation wasn't even a hundredth of a percent of Prop. 8's support.

Okay, that's fair, I'm clearly exaggerating.

But that actually makes the comparison even better! Lots of people pushed for prop 8, which in turn affected lots of people. Lots of people complained about Eich, which in turn affected... Eich.

Yet the GGP is focusing on the masses who tried to pass a constitutional amendment to prevent Eich from being CEO. Wait, no, I must be confused.

I'd say Eich's deposition affects a lot of people ... the users of all Mozilla software. We've discarded the technical brilliance and direction of this man because a few noisy people disagreed with his political beliefs, which he expressed politely and quietly, never intentionally inflaming anyone. He was "exposed" by witch hunters for supporting a very mainstream and normal political position. If we're going to throw away the technical expertise of anyone who disagrees with us, we're going to have a bad time.

I have strong emotional investment in Mozilla, because they fight to do the right thing, not just do whatever's mainstream and normal. Prop 8 was emphatically not the right thing. Eich has fought some of the battles I sympathize with, and I certainly hope he keeps doing that, but I'm not comfortable seeing him as head of the company.

> One man can't be CEO because other people complained on the Internet.

Just as importantly--if not more so: board members and employees in the organization were complaining.

So why did they appoint him in the first place?

That's a pretty good question, and (as noted elsewhere) it's amazing that nobody saw this coming. It took them a while to settle on him, too.

No, Eich's $1000 didn't singlehandedly determine a law. It's peanuts. It's nothing. On the other hand, this witch hunt did singlehandedly disenfranchise him of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of employment.

There is no comparison.

The pro-prop-8 side spent $39M. The passage of the amendment caused the state to stop recognizing 18,000 previously-legitimate marriages. So if you count only immediate effects, his $1000 contribution works out to 0.46 marriages, or destroying the marriage of about one person. Is the emotional harm done to that person worth hundreds of thousands of dollars? It's at least comparable.

In fact I think the harm done to Californians and other Americans by the passage of prop 8 is vastly more than is implied by that simple calculation. I'll just link to my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7525692

What's the sound of one person getting married?

Do you believe that you're making a good-faith attempt to understand how prop 8 caused actual harm to people, and how Eich bears some responsibility for that harm?

For this purpose you don't even have to accept that it was a net negative; you could even believe that prop 8 was overall positive for society. Just that it also caused some harm to some people, and that Eich suffering harm as well is not some crazy unjustified notion, but can be talked about in the same way.

"I do"?

The inventor of JavaScript will have to find something else to do. Woe unto him.

It's not a witch hunt if we really did catch him red-handed using his magical powers for evil.

It is a witch hunt. He didn't do anything illegal.

Your moral judgment concerns no one but you. It is binding on no one but you.

You are a bigot. Everyone that is complicit in disenfranchising this man of employment because of his political opinions is a bigot.

Political persecution doesn't just happen in the third world. It also happens here. And it's a crime against humanity wherever it happens.

You are responsible for what you did. I am holding you responsible for your actions. I am holding you responsible for what you did to this man.

I didn't do anything illegal, either. Yet you seem to have some unspoken set of rules beyond mere law that govern what is acceptable behavior. I've got some of those, too.

I don't want him to not have a job. I want him to not have this job.

I'm curious why it's okay for him to pay money in an attempt to enforce his opinions on others via law, but I'm a bigot and a pox upon civilization for talking on Twitter.

Anecdotally, I've only heard a lot of people complain. Comparing this to a witch hunt appears pretty absurd. Nobody is physically attacking him for what he believes.

Free speech is a 2 way street. I can disagree with him and express that, just as he can express his own views. Free speech is not expressing an opinion with everyone else shutting up about it. Why is this so hard to understand?

Edit: The more I read your comments, the more ridiculous you sound. People protest and boycott things all the time. Why is this any different? If he can't handle public outcry to his own actions, well, that's his problem, not mine.

You disenfranchised him of employment, which has very physical repercussions.

Yes, you very much physically attacked this man.

Well, you're just wrong, simple as that. If you can't see the difference, I suggest you try educating yourself.

I'm not going to waste my time with your factually incorrect pedantry.

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