Mozilla foundation's new CEO causes concern due to anti-gay-marriage views

by
in legal on (#3HA)
story imageThe guy co-founded Mozilla and served as Netscape's chief architect . He invented Javascript . He's been Mozilla's chief technical officer for 9 years. On March 24th, Brendan Eich became the Mozilla Foundation's CEO - and members of Mozilla's staff promptly demanded that he step down . Why? Because Brendan Eich is anti-gay-marriage.

The BBC , CFO World , and others are reporting that online dating site OK Cupid is notifying users of Firefox of the views of the Mozilla Foundation's new CEO - and requesting that they use another browser to access the site. It's not quite a boycott - users can still click through to access the site while using Firefox - but it's definitely a statement. This isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened. Hobby Lobby , Chick-Fil-A , and Costco have all experienced similar backlashes.

Mark Surman, XO of Mozilla, says:
"I worry that we do a bad job of explaining ourselves, that people are angry and don't know who we are or where we stand. And, I worry that in the time it takes to work this through and explain ourselves the things I love about Mozilla will be deeply damaged."

At what point do a person's political, personal, or religious views outweigh their qualifications for leadership - and does using Firefox in any way imply support of these views?

Re: Different levels (Score: 2, Insightful)

by kerrany@pipedot.org on 2014-04-02 12:43 (#Y6)

Heck, I don't think bryan and I are disagreeing on anything as far as I can tell. The examples, the situations, are all different, he's right. That's on purpose. Even if this were That Other Place, and he were power-crazy mod-nuts, it doesn't really sound like he'd be on a mod-down fit. Maybe I'm misreading, though.

The closest this comes for me to anything I can compare to is honestly none of those examples - I always knew Hobby Lobby was scary somehow - it's to the one about Orson Scott Card. This guy, Eich, is someone I would normally really admire. Finding that out gave me a Card Moment: D:
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