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Comment by jamesaguilar | Hacker News Reader

Correction: he donated to an anti-gay candidate. Also, people care more about your current position than what you believed half a decade ago. Obviously OkCupid's CEO has come around on this position (if indeed he ever was anti-gay). Or he is putting on the public appearance of having come around, which for activism's purpose is sufficient.

If Eich had come out in support of gay people during this fiasco (for example, saying something as simple as, "I was wrong, I'm sorry, if I had it to do again, I would not donate to that campaign"), I'm willing to bet that the calls to remove him would have dropped in volume by a substantial margin. This isn't apples to apples, and it's not even apples to oranges. It's apples to pick up trucks.

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Seriously. Eich not only failed to apologize in any meaningful manner (which I get is being spun by people as Integrity, Bro), but seemed to fail to even realize that the viewpoint he endorsed was so widely reviled by Mozilla's supporters.

The public is more than willing to forgive and understand if people are willing to explain their point of view, but he wouldn't even stoop to that.

Absolutely nothing good could come out of him trying to explain his views or his donation. It is good that he hasn't apologized out of pressure. He should only apologize if/when he actually has a change of heart on his position; not because an Internet mob holds him at gun point.

I completely agree.

The fact that he hasn't had a change of heart renders him unsuitable, in my opinion.

Whether or not you agree with it, this is the exact opposite of how an actually appropriate CEO appointee would behave.

I'll take an inappropriate CEO over an appropriate CEO that is willing to lie to the public just to pacify them and to keep his job.

Emphatically agreed. Like many a political scandal, this became a full-blown crisis not because of the original issue but because of how poorly Eich managed it. If Eich had -- like countless other public figures -- expressed a change in point of view on this issue, this would have blown over. As it stood, his recalcitrant stand on the issue was (and is) indefensible, the unwillingness to so much as discuss it was arrogant and the non-apology was patronizing -- but the inability to see how and why he was failing spoke to a much deeper incompetence. Eich is clearly not the stuff that CEOs are made of, and Mozilla as an organization is probably (ultimately) lucky to have figured that out so quickly.

I don't think you know what the word indefensible means. Clearly it is defensible to millions and millions of peopel. But you are too pompous and self-righteous to recognize the cowardice of your own position. Indeed, a hackernews is full of convenient, self-serving, image-crafted self-righteousness.

So, something like reiterating his involvement with Mozilla's stance on openness and inclusion (which includes gays), perhaps? Or how they had always been inclusive?

No. When you publicly take an abhorrent position, it is normally necessary to specifically repudiate that position to remove the doubt in people's minds. Generalities will not cut it.

> When you publicly take an abhorrent position

Donating to a cause and having the people against it sue to find out the backers (while giving assurances that no retribution is planned) is a very strange case to apply the word "publicly" to.

I don't understand why you chose to nitpick that word. Do you not believe that his stance is publicly known? That is all that matters for the rest of what I said. He would have to repudiate it specifically. His general statements are insufficient.

Because this appears to have been planned well in advance.

That lends support to the idea that no one would have believed him no matter what he had said.

What does? The boycott? You must be joking.

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