The people at Mozilla may yet live to regret their decision in cooperating with the forcing out of Brendan Eich.
Apparently the internet giant has been getting a lot of negative reaction to its jettisoning of Eich for his contribution in support of California’s Proposition 8 back in 2008.
Whether or not this will actually end up hurting Mozilla, one wonders whether Mozilla even anticipated the possibility. The folks at Mozilla travel in a world in which PC thought dominates, and if you don’t believe me, take Nate Silver’s word for it (and after the 2012 election, I’m inclined to take Nate Silver’s word for just about anything):
I checked the records for some of the largest technology companies in Silicon Valley: specifically those that were in the Fortune 500 as of 2008. The list includes Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Cisco Systems, Apple, Google, Sun Microsystems, eBay, Oracle, Yahoo, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Symantec. I limited the search to donors who listed California as their location.
In total between these 11 companies, 83 percent of employee donations were in opposition to Proposition 8. So Eich was in a 17 percent minority relative to the top companies in Silicon Valley…
At Intel, 60 percent of employee donations were in support of Proposition 8. By contrast, at Apple, 94 percent of employee donations were made in opposition to Proposition 8. The opposition was even higher at Google, where 96 percent of employee donations were against it, including $100,000 from co-founder Sergey Brin.
There isn’t much data on Mozilla…But it’s likely that employee sentiment at Mozilla is much like that at Google. The organizations share a lot in common…
The point is that many of these companies are staffed by people so heavily in support of gay marriage, and are immersed in an environment that is also so strongly supportive, that they probably have forgotten that the entire country is not quite like that—and that even a significant number of people who are in favor of gay marriage may not be in favor of forcing someone who’s against it to resign.
Mozilla’s business, however, is not limited to Silicon Valley or even California, a fact those in charge who helped to force Eich out may sometimes forget. It’s even possible that Mozilla may be hoist on its own petard, and experience unforeseen economic consequences for its actions.
And by the way, there’s a world of difference between boycotting a company for its company policies and company actions—in this case, facilitating Eich’s “resignation”—and threatening a boycott to force a company to get rid of a CEO or any employee for his/her private, personal, non-company and non-performance-related political beliefs. A world of difference, although both are legal.
[Neo-neocon is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at neo-neocon.]
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We have to push back hard on this because already people are objecting to the Church of Rome’s teaching on homosexuality because some whiny programmed kids and their equally programmed and whiny parents are upset with a nun who gave a talk on the unhealthiness of homosexuality.
Fer cryin’ out loud, by whose standard of health is the homosexual act healthy?
After reading that article, linked to elsewhere earlier, about the students at a Catholic school, fer goodness sake, objecting to the nun’s talk and the principal apologizing, I couldn’t help remember Paul in Roman’s 1: it’s not just the doer of the act who is guilty of sin but those who support them in the doing.
What the hey! They shall all have their reward.
“Fer cryin’ out loud, by whose standard of health is the homosexual act healthy?”
Uh, that of homosexuals?
In the late 1970s and early 1980s the homosexual community lobbied congress to make it illegal for insurance companies to charge extra for being homosexual. The homosexuals argued that their health care was 25 times more expensive than that of straight people. They complained that if they were charged by use, they would all die, since they would not be able to afford treatment.
Homosexuals 30-40 years ago said something, so they must have been 100% correct!
How about giving me some sort of scientific study on the health risks of homosexuality vs that of heterosexuality instead…
Whatever happened to a person not being discriminated on the basis of creed? Creed means belief, faith, ideology, etc.
It’s funny how Liberals say Stalinists should not have discriminated/blacklisted on the basis of their radical creed, but anyone who opposes ‘gay marriage’ must be fired or blacklisted even if the person acts professionally at work and believes what he does on the basis of conscience.
So McCarthyism was wrong against communists but is ok against normo-sexuals who don’t believe homosexuality is of equal value to society as true sexuality?
Just for the record, the term McCarthyism was created by the left/commies to get attention away from them. Joe McCarthy was a great patriot who did uncover an awful lot of commies who lied to get government jobs.
The reason the left is so good at demonizing their opponents is because they created the technique.
I don’t understand, is it your argument that all boycotts are invidiously discriminatory?
People who hold liberal views can choose to use Mozilla’s products based on any reason at all. People who hold other views can also do this, as is in evidence in the comments here.
Boycotting a company, IMO, only makes sense when the company is doing something egregious. Does the company (via policy) discriminate? Does the company use child labor? Is the company harming the environment? But this current notion that it’s reasonable to go after individuals who on their own dime and time support an ideology you don’t agree with is downright evil. Was Eich using Mozilla funds to support Prop 8? If not, then what just happened is, quite simply, a modern day witch hunt. It’s despicable and cowardly behavior by people who apparently have so little faith in the ideology they espouse that they feel the need to silence the opposition. Any real liberal would be disgusted and outraged at what just occurred.
People and companies discriminate every day. Discrimination is necessary to good decision-making. It is an essential part of morality and life. The choice of companions is an act of discrimination.
On the other hand this: an employer is allowed to discriminate against smokers whose habits affect only themselves, though the rest of us may dislike the odor of the smoke, yet the law pro it’s him from discriminating against homosexuals whose lifestyle results in diseases far more pernicious.
It’s about politics. Some discrimination is more acceptable than others. You can discriminate against some men for what the do, but not against other me for the same reason.
One man’s “egregious” is another man’s “meh,” I suppose.
Did a lot of blogging and tweeting on this yesterday.
See, “‘Without question and without exaggeration, the ‘gay rights movement’ is the angriest, most ruthless, most controlling, most intolerant of all the ideological enterprises in the country. Now, everyone knows it…'”
And there’ll be more leftist thought control today.
Keep fighting the leftist hatred, friends.
Yah, but what blowback is really possible. Use Chrome/Google?
Until now Mozilla’s politics has been private, where as Google has been taking every opportunity to push theirs.
Unfortunately, many browsers are based on Chrome or Firefox.
Ironic that one website is blocking the FF based browsers and recommending the Chrome based ones.
I prefer the upfront Google style. Even if I disagree with their politics, at least they are upfront about it. The Mozilla employees had not been upfront.
There are lots of alternatives to the actual browsers such as Firefox. I use Cyberfox instead of Firefox as my Mozilla browser. Instead of using Chrome which is the Google product I use an alternative such as Coowon.
Anyone who wants a new browser can go to Softpedia and make an informed decision on what will suit.
I’ve just discovered the Pale Moon and Iron browsers, and have uninstalled Firefox.
Oh, and Mitchell Baker is bossy…
Very happy with Pale Moon so far.
They have a tool “pmmig” (pale moon migration” that copies your FireFox settings to your Pale Moon install.
To be honest…I haven’t checked that Pale Moon website, etc, to see if they are as Lib-Fascist as FireFox but I’ll trust the various posters here and on other websites which have vouched for them.
I’m searching for a good alternative to Thunderbird now–any thoughts?
In the midst of converting from Firefox to Opera 20. Transferring book marks not easy, just saved an HTML file of bookmarks from FF and then open that HTML file in Opera. And moving passwords not easy; just did a screen grab (SHIFT / PRT SCN) and saved passwords as image files.
For mail, I have used OperaMail in the past, which at the time did POP or IMAP based email.
I downloaded Opera and I’ve found it to have bothersome limitations, unless there are some buttons I’m not seeing. Apparently I can’t make a toolbar on top where I can open frequently used pages in just one click. The method of opening multiple pages at once (which I just now figured out) seems more cumbersome. When I add something to the “stash,” the latest ones go on top — the opposite of what’s generally practical. Etc.
I’ll try use it a bit more. But another caveat: It’s made by Norwegians (probably leftists), and Norway is not a great defender of free speech and freedom of conscience.
Opera Mail seems to work well; easy to use with gmail.
I’ve used Iron for about a year now, solid browser. Even though it’s based on Chrome, you don’t get most of google’s spyware. I’ll be uninstalling FF (not that I used it much anymore) from all of my machines.
This firing nonsense must be stopped now. I put new java script on my website for those using Mozilla Firefox. Details at http://whyfirefoxisblocked.com/
Why would you do such a thing? Are you worried that the wrong kind of person might read your site?
Just use opera, and stay away from as much of Mozilla and chrome as possible. Unfortunately getting away from google completely is impossible with smart phones and tablets but they can also be used against them. Shed light on the intolerance of gay rights and let everyone know it’s not about equality as always it’s about getting more then the other group.
Semper Fi
I miss the old google “scraper” (Scroogle, aka scroo google) which would take your google requests, strip off any useful personal info that helps the google ad-generating machine and then pushes your request to google.
Very deft method to use while not helping.
Sadly, they gradually withered from lack of support.
http://www.startpage.com uses google search algorithms but is private and doesn’t allow tracking.
http://www.ghostery.com blocks ads and trackers.
Both free.
But ghostery doesn’t work well on IE.
And startpage apparently doesn’t work on Opera.
I’ve been able to use Startpage on Opera.
It works in Safari. Do Not Track and a whole host of blocking stuff against Facebook, google, all work.
Firefox has been irritating for some time and I’ve read that other people feel the same way. The Eich incident was the last straw. It tipped me to do something I’d been considering anyway.
I’ve removed Firefox from my PC and will do the same the next time I use my workstation.
As I commented at Neo’s site, the Eich lynching and the deterioration of Mozilla products may have overlapping causes. Aggressive groupthink impairs an organization’s innovating. Calling groupthink tolerance doesn’t change that.
>>”The people at Mozilla may yet live to regret their decision in cooperating with the forcing out of Brendan Eich.”
I’ll believe it when it happens. So far, no one on the Left has been forced to regret anything. For two reasons: 1. the GOP is absolutely impotent as a cultural force and actually crouches in fear and silence at any form of controversial cultural eruption while the democrats rally in unabashed attack mode at these same opportunities, and 2. the MSM is simply overpowering in its war against the Right. Sure, the Right stages brief uprisings and occasionally is able to push back at the edges. But so far, not enough to make any systemic difference.
Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Rand Paul: We have some voices, and they are working our side. Will they survive, or will the Republican establishment be successful in its effort to eliminate them?
Maybe I’m just dense but didn’t Eich resign? If so, why would anybody stick up for him since he wouldn’t stand up for himself? He had to know that Mozilla would be harmed if he left the corp so why didn’t he force a board meeting?
And since Firefox is free and open source, how does using it or not using it affect Mozilla in any way? This seems to me to be a tempest in a CGI teapot.
And yeah, the gaystapo is disgusting.
They receive revenue from page hits, linked ads, search referals, et cetera. I don’t have a cite, but seem to remember they had $330M in revenue last year.
To your first question…yes, he technically resigned albeit in the same way Nixon resigned. He was leaving no matter what, the only difference was how.
For your second question, yes the browser itself is free, but Mozilla does receive revenue from other companies based on its use (similar to advertising, but different). This outrage may also scare away people and companies considering donations of one form or another. Each act of uninstalling the browser has very little effect on their bottom line (though it may be fairly noticeable in aggregate), but the vocalization of the act with the reasons behind it and the resulting bad publicity should be their primary concern.
Thanks to both of you for educating me.
His resignation brought everything in the public eye and may have been his act of protest. By doing it, get struck a blow against homosexual terrorism, so now folks, in the wake of their “marriage” brownshirting against small business owners, are even more fed up of them. His next company will nit welcome homosexuals so freely.
Platypus, A CEO of a company is employed via it’s Board of Directors. A simple majority vote of a BOD to oust a CEO (or sometimes a majority vote of shareholders) and the CEO is gone.
Depending on the terms of his contract, resigning may have been an option they gave him which allowed him a severance, etc.
Brendan Eich was not simply a newly appointed CEO of Mozilla, he was one of the founders of the company and had been associated with Mozilla for 16 years. There had never been any evidence or complaint in those years that he had ever been discriminatory of any gay employees.
He also is the person who “invented” JavaScript.
Rarebit(owned by the male gay couple who started this) has put out additional statements saying that if only Eich had “recanted” his support of prop 8, he could have stayed. He could have kept his beliefs(they actually said this) but should have said that he now supports gay marriage.
This is straight up fascism.
Some people perceive this “progress” as inclusive. I perceive it as selective exclusion. They can join the pro-murder/abortion acolytes to reconcile the moral hazards they have created.
Right, because calling pro-choicers “murderers” is soooooo inclusive…
Anyway, “inclusiveness” has nothing to do with Mozilla. Here, the public face of a company did something that pissed some customers off. When this kind of thing happens, that person is usually fired.
Every CEO pisses someone off every day .He obviously has skills the company wanted . Now they will have to get someone else , who is prepared to have their full political file leaked by the IRS .
No big deal . He has probably porked all this years female intern crop already . The next guy will be lining up the boy interns .
Equality at Mozilla! I am all for it .
I’m a liberal and I’m as disgusted with Firefox as I am with Hobby Lobby. Mark my words, soon corporations will be the only “people” with any rights.
What is “disgusting” about Hobby Lobby offering its employees health insurance that doesn’t cover abortifacients (though it does, from what I’ve read, cover other kinds of contraception)? The business is not preventing its employees from using contraception or abortifacients — only saying that abortifacients will not be “free” as part of their compensation package.
The idea that the Hobby Lobby owners are forcing their beliefs on anyone by simply saying “abortifacients are something you’ll have to buy with the wages we’re paying you, not something that we’re compelling our other employees to subsidize” is truly bizarre. It’s irrational.
I remember when Democrats were screeching that Robert Mapplethorpe et al. were being “censored” because a government agency chose not to support their so-called art with taxpayers’ money. It’s a plainly irrational notion, but people calling themselves “liberal” apparently believed it sincerely.
Or else they’re just practicing outrage theater of the most cynical kind.
There is really no parallel at all between Mozilla holding that a highly talented person who has quietly supported the traditional definition of marriage may not be their CEO (even if he never says anything publicly about the issue), and Hobby Lobby saying that employees may buy their own abortifacients thank you.
What’s disgusting is that the government is attempting to force people to promote activities to which they have a moral objection.
Exactly. Bravo!
Like salary, health insurance is part of an employee’s compensation package. Hobby Lobby’s involvement, or “promoting,” is the same whether the employee buys birth control through their health insurance (which the employee pays premiums on) or their paycheck.
Further, Hobby Lobby “promotes” the very same birth control it feigns to be morally opposed to by investing in it. They are greedy, hypocritical liars who are trying to legalize employment discrimination.
Lastly, I’m being consistent in my argument that companies should not have authority over their employee’s personal lives. Hobby Lobby supporters who are condemning Mozilla are being inconsistent. Either you think a company’s “religion” should extend into employee’s personal lives or you don’t. Pick a side.
As a “liberal”, you live up to your Socialist ideals, don’t you? How about being liberal enough to say nothing when we Christians live up to ours?
Currently there are 27 types of contraceptives regulated by the FDA. Hobby lobby has 23 of them in their health care coverage. the few they objected to are called abortifacients. They induce abortions. Contraceptives are essentially free to anyone that can’t afford them.
The sacking of Eich doesn’t seem that controversial to me. Mozilla clearly understands that support for gay equality is very strong and is only going to get stronger. Thus, having a CEO who has donated to political causes anathema to that equality is a huge gamble.
However, I just have to laugh at the Conservative response to the situation. There is outrage on the right that some liberals called for a boycott due to Eich’s political views, and so the response is to…boycott Mozilla due to their political views? Why not just boycott Mozilla because FireFox is a terrible browser, like I do?
You must have skipped over the part above where it tells the percentage of people at his company that voted for Prop 8. If you took that same survey all over the country you would be surprised that the number would be pretty much the same throughout the country except for heavy homo/gay cities and the left coast. This is the left’s way of demonizing anyone whom they disagree with or to slant public opinion against them by using slander and vilification. You only have to look at the TEA party, Koch brothers and Romney to see this at work. They can’t even tolerate a pro-life point of view without calling that person evil names.
That level of support for prop-8 type laws is moving in the right direction, aren’t you already in the minority on equality? If not, it will only take a few more years and a few more states realizing that equality doesn’t make the sky fall in…
support for gay equality is very strong
This is meaningless.
We’re not seeing anything here about “gay equality”, we’re seeing a vicious and abusive activist agenda in action. And support for that is weak.
“Gay equality” does not require redefining the most fundamental social institution since time immemorial. Not long ago, gay activists denied they wanted any such thing as “marriage,” a heterosexual institution by definition. Now they claim that anyone who holds that view is a hateful bigot who needs to be harassed, crushed, silenced, hounded out of a job, etc.
The leftist position on gay “marriage” isn’t proceeding by a natural process of social evolution, as its advocates pretend. It’s advancing by relentless propaganda, indoctrination in schools, media haranguing, bullying, name-calling, etc.
Some people just get tired of being told they’re “hateful” for holding the same view that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton claimed to hold until quite recently, so they take the path of least resistance.
Sorry pal, but if a social institution is discriminatory, then it has to change, that is the meaning of progress. Churches can refuse to marry people all they want, but states cannot do the same…
“And by the way, there’s a world of difference between boycotting a company for its company policies and company actions—in this case, facilitating Eich’s “resignation”—and threatening a boycott to force a company to get rid of a CEO or any employee for his/her private, personal, non-company and non-performance-related political beliefs. ”
‘… indeed: one I approve of, one I don’t, and that’s one hell of a difference….’ I was under the impression that this ‘THREAT of boycott’ was because some people didn’t approve of Mozilla’s actions in promoting Eich to CEO.
Ho hum… another leftist who does not understand the difference between being conservative and the right….
You are wrong pal…. people on the “right” are no different from people on the “left” since both are tarred with the same brush.
The right/left thing is very European. Hitler was allegedly of the right, but in fact he was a leftist. The difference between Hitler and Stalin was in fact their versions of left-wing politics. Both of them were left of centre….
So really you are barking up the wrong tree with your spewing of garbage.
Way to take on my use of the word “right,” would it kill you to address the argument instead?
What is “homosexual equality”?
What rights enshrined in the US Constitution do homosexuals not have? Show me by citing the text. Don’t make up BS “rights.”
What homosexuals want when they talk about “equality” is for heterosexuals, especially Judaeo-Christian ones, to say God is in error for condemning homosexuality as sin worthy of death (which all sin merits). Therefore, “homosexual equality”, in their eyes, is a rejection of Scripture and the God whose Word it is. You all will have to kill us and we won’t recant.
What homosexuals want when they talk about “equality” is for heterosexuals in the scientific community, to assert that, sexually, the anus is equal to the vagina. The schools have begun to teach this to children. However, no amount of homosexual propaganda can or will change human biology. No woman, in a monogamous relationship, will get hepatitis C and other diseases, common to homosexuals, from having vaginal intercourse. No woman can become pregnant from anal intercourse. Consequently, the homosexual act is not only barren, it is also grossly unhealthy. Not even homosexual propagandists can change that biological fact.
What homosexuals want when they talk about “equality” is for heterosexuals to deny that only heterosexuality is necessary for the continuation of the species, hence the push for adoptions and “marriage” in what is a bud, I think, to forestall some future genocide of their community.
Nobody wants that. Nobody wants anybody harmed. Homosexuals just need to wake up and learn to live and let live. They cannot and will never have the “equality” they are seeking, not even if they have surgery.
You God guys love talkin’ “anus” don’t you?
Anyway, the part of the Constitution I really emphasize here is the “equal protection” part.
Conservatives and Liberals both are choosing to boycott Mozilla because of Mozilla’s actions in firing a CEO due to his political beliefs that he privately held. Beliefs that in no way were effecting his job performance. Eich was a founder of Mozilla, he had been associated with the company for sixteen years. Not one incidence that he ever was discriminatory of gay employees.
Let’s put it this way. I have a great gay employee who works at my company, doing his job well. I find out that he donated to a political action group who is trying to legalize gay marriage, by having someone email me that his name was on a public campaign reporting list.
I first post tweets naming this employee and what cause he supports. I express my outrage at this employee and demand in a meeting with him that he issue a public statement denouncing gay marriage or be fired. He refuses, so I fire him , then proudly pronounce to the world that he is fired, BUT that my company loves diversity.(Yes, Mozilla tweeted after Eich’s resignation that they were a diversity loving company, respectful of everyone’s beliefs…I kid you not)
“However, I just have to laugh at the Conservative response to the situation. There is outrage on the right that some liberals called for a boycott due to Eich’s political views, and so the response is to…boycott Mozilla due to their political views? Why not just boycott Mozilla because FireFox is a terrible browser, like I do?”
Yes we must not be hypocritical. If the other side is doing something that intimidates people on our side into silence we must not return the favor for fear of being seen hypocritical.
If someone were to attack our country we must not return the favor for fear of being hypocritical.
We must ignore the fact that the left is winning purely on intimidation and just resign ourselves to surrender on this and future issues to avoid looking hypocritical.
This is a war. War is not hypocritical. We don’t like what Mozilla did and we are fine with what Eich did, therefore we boycott Mozilla for firing Eich.
Get it?
Conservatives need to stop primarily caring about looking good and fight.
It took me a long long long time to realize that we can’t remain silent in the face of leftist thuggery and bullying. Boycotts have long been distasteful to us because they smack of intolerance; we watch movies made by or starring people who hate this country because we separate the art from the politics, and we buy products we like because we like them, even if we disagree with their corporate policies or their CEO’s donating habits. In short, we chose, for decades, to rise above the fray, but look what and where that got us. It’s (past) time to push back. We’re losing on every front: cultural, social, political, you name it. That has to stop, and apparently you really do have to fight fire with fire.
I tried about five different browsers looking for a replacement for Firefox (which I’ve loved for years), and finally settled on a great browser (Pale Moon) that looks just like my old, anti-free speech, think like us or starve Mozilla Firefox browser. It was easy peasy to import every single thing I had on that fascist-led browser to my new Pale Moon browser, and I couldn’t be happier.
I’d love to stop this back and forth, but every time the gaystapo and assorted leftie thought police organize their intolerant brigade, we must push back. We outnumber them by tens of millions, quite literally; it doesn’t seem so because they are so active, but look at Chik-fil-A and Duck Dynasty. We can affect the public discourse, and in doing so, we’ll force them to find other ways to implode.
I deal cordially with leftists frequently in everyday activity, but I seriously doubt that they would all be cordial (or even civil) to me if they knew my political views.
Excellent!
If Pale Moon fails to satisfy then Cyberfox and Waterfox are great alternatives.
Eich has another option. Almost all of Mozilla’s code base is free for anyone else to use. Eich could simply start sharing Mozilla’s software through another company. He certainly has the clout and standing to make that approach profitable to him.
MOved over to Opera yesterday. have to leave firefox installed as some pages at work only function properly in FF. but my daily heavy duty usage will all be on opera.
Can somebody please explain the Mozilla business model to me? I’m having trouble understanding how boycotting a company that gives away it’s products for free will harm them. Thanks in advance.
Free browsers make money in quite a few ways: they earn search royalties from Google (for instance), they make money from advertisers, and they sell their browser in bundles when people purchase new computers (i.e. Chrome and IE). There is also a big market for mobile versions of browsers, revenue sharing, and of course, the stock market and/or sale of the browser in future should it become popular. They also, of course, accept donations from users (more lucrative than you might think).
The love that dared not speak it’s name now won’t shut the hell up.
“Apparently the internet giant has been getting a lot of negative reaction to its jettisoning of Eich …”
What is the evidence for this? Negative comments on a feedback site? You think there may be people out there stirring up some forum spamming, perchance? Might be a whole lot more noise than actual sentiment. Particularly compared to the sentiment the other way. At least that seems to be what Mozilla and/or Eich think….