Posted on 04/04/2014 6:26:53 AM PDT by Unam Sanctam
Under the heading “Brendan Eich steps down as CEO,” Mozilla has posted the following statement in the name of executive chairwoman Mitchell Baker. Eich has “stepped down” from his position at Mozilla days after his appointment, following the revelation that he contributed $1,000 to the campaign supporting the passage of Prop 8 in California six years ago. The Wall Street Journal covers the story here.
Baker’s statement is must reading, though it requires some translation. It is not exactly straightforward. Using the mandatory shibboleths, the statement refers to a corporate culture of “diversity and inclusiveness.” If you’ve read 1984, you can probably handle the translation without help from me:
Mozilla prides itself on being held to a different standard and, this past week, we didn’t live up to it. We know why people are hurt and angry, and they are right: it’s because we haven’t stayed true to ourselves.
We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better.
Brendan Eich has chosen to step down from his role as CEO. He’s made this decision for Mozilla and our community.
Mozilla believes both in equality and freedom of speech. Equality is necessary for meaningful speech. And you need free speech to fight for equality. Figuring out how to stand for both at the same time can be hard.
Our organizational culture reflects diversity and inclusiveness. We welcome contributions from everyone regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender-identity, language, race, sexual orientation, geographical location and religious views. Mozilla supports equality for all.
We have employees with a wide diversity of views. Our culture of openness extends to encouraging staff and community to share their beliefs and opinions in public. This is meant to distinguish Mozilla from most organizations and hold us to a higher standard. But this time we failed to listen, to engage, and to be guided by our community.
While painful, the events of the last week show exactly why we need the web. So all of us can engage freely in the tough conversations we need to make the world better.
We need to put our focus back on protecting that Web. And doing so in a way that will make you proud to support Mozilla.
What’s next for Mozilla’s leadership is still being discussed. We want to be open about where we are in deciding the future of the organization and will have more information next week. However, our mission will always be to make the Web more open so that humanity is stronger, more inclusive and more just: that’s what it means to protect the open Web.
We will emerge from this with a renewed understanding and humility — our large, global, and diverse community is what makes Mozilla special, and what will help us fulfill our mission. We are stronger with you involved.
Thank you for sticking with us.
Mitchell Baker, Executive Chairwoman
Not hard. Impossible.
Like "liberty" and "equality", "freedom" and "inclusiveness" are antonyms.
I’ve been using Opera, occasionally find a site that doesn’t like it (or flat out refuses to run under it). I’ve even found some sites that insist on Chrome as the browser.
I don’t touch Mozilla or IE except when a website demands it (and filing online with some employers makes that so).
You can be passive rebuke about it, no problem.
As long as it's the politically correct conversation, huh?
You can still do tough conversations, no problem.
I am going to Torch.
I do Safari, no problem.
The mob rules....until sanity returns.
They have lost me as a customer.
Fast, stable, feature-packed.
Once you try it, all other broswers will pale in comparison.
But costs way too much this: $$$$.
The mob rules.............Until this November.
It’s free!
And it is also a browser which has been around since the 1990’s.....not some new browser also ran.
> I can feminize her name a bit
Mitch the B*.
lol
if he owns web patents he should block Mozilla from using them
Nobody, and I mean NOBODY could boycott Brendan Eich if they tried. He is the creator of javascript which is used by all browsers. Virtually every web site you visit today uses javascript.
Same here. Any advice much appreciated.
Next up, the forced “resignation” of Catholics (or any Christian for that matter)? How about they force the Pope to resign?
Agreed. Been using it since about version 3.5, when it was still ad-supported and Netscape and Explorer were the top two browsers.
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