One can only dream of a world in which all civic actions are secular, and religious matters are private and quiet.
(Back when equal marriage was a live political issue here, I must say I think I _preferred_ the out-and-proud homophobes to the ones who hid behind religious claims. At least they were honest in their hatred.)
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.
How could he lead an organization when his personal biases was made clear by these donations which was to deny them what most people consider to be a basic human right - the right to life and happiness.
If you mean by "anti-vaxer (sic)" my opposition to the Covid shots and mandates, then so be it. Many, including me, who have had older vaccines, especially from before the 1986 US liability shield and subsequent problems, are "anti-vax". Even though we still vaccinate our children.
"Covid conspiracist" must mean I cited lab leak possibility and reasons for considering it. Now that federal agencies agree, you should reconsider this lame smear attempt.
Your use of (misspelled) "spell words" (Roger Scruton's phrase) to curse me marks you as superstitious and thoughtless. Do better!
This self-righteous bickering is indicative of more character flaws than Eich displayed with his opinions.
No, that is not what happened. Political activists inside companies have gained power as a result of the 'long march through the institutions [1] which they have been using to enforce their ideology in rigid fashion. This started in the lunch rooms but eventually reached all the way to the top. Eich, like many other CEO's was replaced by a political activist - in this case Mitchell Baker - who used her position to further her ideological goals while simultaneously enriching herself. She is only one of many who is guilty of this type of fiduciary breach of confidence.
The fact that these 'champagne socialists' strut their virtue while filling their coffers - in Dutch this this is called 'links lullen, rechts vullen' (talk left but hoard right) - only makes it all the more galling and clear that their ideology is only a thin veneer over a lust for greed and power [2].
[1] https://www.marcuse.org/herbert/scholarship/2020s/2022-kimba...
[2] That same ideology sees everything in the world as an eternal power game between the oppressive and the oppressed and calls for a permanent revolution against the powerful - i.e. against themselves.
Meanwhile, around the same time, Bill Gates was meeting with Epstein, and that received less than 1/10th of the media coverage. He was sending emails about "staying late into the night" at Epstein's house with a woman and her underaged daughter. But that's ok, because he's on "our side".
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.
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.
[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...
This person specifically fought against equal rights. The way most people look at what he did (and the way certainly anyone but the most virulent bigots in the future will) is the same way we today look at the people who threw rocks at MLK during the civil rights movement.
Eich hasn't thrown rocks at anyone and it's disengenuous to frame it otherwise, especually considering you could have made a perfectly good argument without that.
Edit: The question isn't whether you think he did something wrong, it's whether you think that people who have contributed massively to causes or organisations should be driven out for reasons that have nothing to do with those causes or organisations.
What did you think was going to happen?
If "the market" truly were king I'd expect those who come with plans to rake in the most money for the least effort to take over, i.e. the thing which those same activists tend to point damning fingers at for being the evils of 'capitalism'. I'd also expect companies which are taken over by activists to fail in the market since they produce less efficiently given that part of their energy is used to further the cause of those activists instead of focusing on 'shareholder value'.
It's not like his career has been destroyed. He's still incredibly wealthy, and has a new browser company. People can use that, and work there, if they want.
Something which a majority of Californians in 2008 voted for, so your many people were the minority.
But even were that not the case, where should the line be drawn? Even if Eich's view were held by 1% and not the 52.24% that voted for it in 2008, should Eich have been fired for holding that position? Yes or no?
Same sex marriage simply wasn't a thing legally at the time, and was an issue the american public was discussing. It was not something in the process of being criminalized. The population of California voted not to allow it in the year we are talking about here, just to give you some perspective. Barack Obama opposed it politically.
Not just most Californians.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both agreed with him at the time.
Oddly, neither of those people has been hounded from public life.
Where have anti-homophobes said that "Bill Gates' behavior is okay because he's 'on our side'"? Do you have a single example?
This became obvious in the coverage of Trump and then Russia's war on Ukraine. If everything I've read for years was true, both Trump and Russia would have been finished long ago. But they're clearly not.
> Should half the country "suffer" as well just for voting Republican?
In the past, probably not. With today's Republicans? Absolutely. You don't get to knowingly vote for a fascist and his corrupt sycophants and face no repercussions. If your politics are "I don't give a fuck about democracy unless I win," our world views are entirely incompatible and I don't want to give you an iota of support.
This is not allowed on HN, regardless of which politics you're for or against, or how right you are or feel you are. We have to ban accounts that post like this and I definitely don't want to ban you, so if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stop posting like this, that would be good.
If “political and ideological battle” is not allowed, then why not ban these topic entirely?
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
If you look over that material and still have a question that hasn't been answered, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.
The short version is: (1) some political overlap is inevitable* and ok, but (2) even in those threads, battle-style or flamewar-style comments are not ok, and (3) using HN primarily for such purposes is not allowed and we ban accounts that do. Your account has been on the wrong side of both (2) and (3), which is why I replied to you.
It's a common perception that "HN is getting more political lately" but I think that's an illusion which goes back a long way: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869. It's a product of sample bias plus random fluctuation.
* Btw, that is the answer to your question "why not ban [political] topics entirely"—it can't be done. For one thing, there's no agreement about what counts as "politics"; for another, many stories that are clearly on-topic for HN have political aspects. Trying to exclude the political altogether would actually be a surefire way to intensely politicize this place, as we discovered when we once briefly (for a couple days) tried an experiment in doing so. That was quite a learning experience.