logoalt Hacker News

i80andyesterday at 5:11 PM1 replyview on HN

Yeah no, (1) Mozilla was going to be in for a tough go no matter what; I don't think Eich would have fared any better. But (2) you can't donate to stop your own employees and users from having civil rights without repercussions.

People with an axe to grind always hide what Brendan Eich did behind "politics" which is a dishonest slight of hand.


Replies

sltkryesterday at 5:54 PM

> Yeah no, (1) Mozilla was going to be in for a tough go no matter what; I don't think Eich would have fared any better.

Nobody knows this for sure. We do know that Eich was fired for political reasons, and not because of his technological direction.

This betrays a decision making process that prioritizes political correctness above leadership qualities and technical contributions.

> you can't donate to stop your own employees and users from having civil rights without repercussions.

Why not? Why can't the CEO of Mozilla have his own private political views just like anyone else, and donate his own private money to whatever democratic causes he likes?

This really isn't obvious to anyone except the people, like you, who view Mozilla as a political project first, and as a software project a distant second.

Firing your CEO for not being sufficiently aligned with the American Democratic Party only makes sense if you assume the purpose of Mozilla is to push American Democratic politics, rather than make good software that anyone in the world may use (spoiler alert: many users of open-source software are not American Democrats!)

show 2 replies