A curse and a blessing
April 7, 2014 § 38 Comments
The curse
When Brendan Eich stepped in as a CEO, Mozilla and him were immediately faced a storm demanding his resignation because of his political opinions. To the best of my knowledge, none of those responsible for the storm were employees of the Mozilla Corporation and only 4 or 5 of them were members of the Mozilla Community (they were part of the Mozilla Foundation, which is a different organization).
When Brendan Eich resigned from his position as an employee of Mozilla, Mozilla was immediately faced by a storm assuming that Brendan Eich had been fired, either because of his opinions or as a surrender to the first storm.
Both storms are still raging, fueled by angry (and dismayed and saddened) crowds and incompetent news reporting.
We will miss Brendan. We have suffered and we will continue suffering from these storms. But we can also salvage from them.
The blessing
Think about it. We are being criticized by angry crowds. But the individuals who form these crowds are not our enemies. Many of them care deeply about Freedom of Speech and are shocked because they believe that we are extinguishing this freedom. Others care primarily about equality, an equality that can seldom be achieved wherever there is no Freedom of Speech.
Freedom of Speech. This is one of the core values of Mozilla, one of the values for which we have been fighting all these years.
We are being criticized by some of the people who need us most. They are our users, or our potential users, and they are getting in touch with us. Through Facebook, through Twitter, through the contribute form, through the governance mailing-list, through our blogs, or in real life discussions.
Some will say that we should ignore them. Some will be tempted to answer anger with anger and criticism with superiority.
Do neither. They are our users. They deserve to be heard.
We should listen to them. We should answer their concerns, not with FAQs or with press releases, but with individual answers, because these concerns are valid. We should explain what really happened. We should show them how Mozilla is largely about defending Freedom of Speech through the Open Web.
So please join the effort to answer the angry crowds. If you can, please reach out to media and the public and get the story out there. If only one person out of a hundred angry users receives the message and decides to join the community and the fight for the open web, we will have salvaged a victory out of the storm.
Il y a du thé renversé au bord de la table 
Mozilla just fired some one for having an opinión and you dare to talk about how Mozilla is about “Freedom of speach”, so comic. #uninstallfirefox.
Thanks for your reaction. I would be angry at Mozilla, if I thought that Brendan had been fired – especially if I thought he had been fired for his opinions.
However, this is not what happened. Brendan was pressured to step down by a campaign directed directly against him, from the outside of the Mozilla community. This campaign was largely organized and directed by OKCupid. While a few members of the Mozilla Community (I am aware of exactly 4 people) took part in this campaign at some point, most of the members of the Mozilla Community supported Brendan, as you can see if you scroll back on our blog aggregator.
Let me stress this out: Mozilla did not fire Brendan. When Brendan announced his resignation, we tried to convince him to stay, either as CEO or as CTO (his previous position). Brendan felt that the controversy was hurting Mozilla and he decided to resign to avoid the damage to the Mozilla mission, including our critical role in making Free Speech possible on the Internet. However, I am happy to tell you that Brendan is still very much an active part of the Mozilla Project in a key position.
I hope this helped to alleviate your concern.
David, can you please stop running all over the blogosphere writing things you do not know to be true?
No one tried to convince me to stay as CEO. My previous position was not just CTO, it was also SVP Engineering — a position eliminated in a reorg I had just done.
What “key position” am I “active” in now, pray tell?
Best to stick to what you know to be true.
/be
I assume that your message is meant to be public, as you also have my e-mail address.
I stand corrected on both accounts. Please accept my apologies.
Owner of module owners, plus a few other modules. At least that’s what everybody believes. Is it not true anymore?
As you can see, Brendan left a comment on this thread. It seems that I got several facts wrong, so I suggest you also read his comment.
David: I cannot seem to reply to your reply, so I’ll reply to the nearest ancestor with a *Reply* link. I do still own two modules, one the Module Ownership System, the other mozilla-toplevel. The former has used the mozilla-governance list/group for years to avoid bottlenecking on me, with module-ownership@mozilla.org as backstop, and with me as ultimate buck stopper. The latter is observed more in the breach these days.
These are not key positions any longer, although I do have them and respond quickly in these roles when needed (very rarely, as noted).
Again you write things you don’t know or can’t attest to, which sound like hype: “Brendan is still very much an active part of the Mozilla Project in a key position.” My best advice is to refrain from doing anything like that!
/be
Well, I may be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure that you were still active as module owner owner as of this week. For the “very much”, I’ll admit to over-enthusiasm. For “key position”, I will now know that this is not the case anymore.
Saying someone wasn’t fired is disingenuous. Not actively defending a CEO is effectively siding with those opposing him/her, especially in a case like this.
How would the board, with the support for certain rights you note in your posts here, have responded if he had come under fire for donating the same amount to the opposite side of the same campaign? I am certain he would have found much more support in a case like that as it is more popular today to support those who overthrow thousands of years of human practice in the name of “equal rights.”
The support only seems to go one way, until you get a backlash like what you see now.
Could the leadership of Mozilla of done anything better? In hindsight, certainly. Was anyone in the leadership of Mozilla seen defending Brendan at the time? Indeed, noone was – not even Brendan, and I for one was waiting for him to do so.
We can play the blame game and the “what if” game as much as we want, but I believe that this is just a situation that everybody failed to understand and handle while there was time. I also believe that Brendan’s resignation came as a surprise to everyone involved and destroyed any plan that the board and the communications team might (or might not, we will never know) have had to stand up for him.
Just let me quote Mitchell Baker about this issue:
“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.”
Why didn’t Mozilla live to its standars? How come Mozilla wasn true of them selves?
“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.”
Why they must do faster and better? so, Brendan should have been fired more quickly?
You people don’t even read the statements of your superiors?
That’s very good questions. Let me answer it inline:
That’s explained in the next paragraph.
Well, as you quote, « we didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. » In other words, while (literally) thousands of people were asking questions about Brendan Eich, about Mozilla, about our positions, we did not answer quickly enough. We waited until we have a good answer that would explain everything, and by the time we came up with nice and well-formulated answer, Brendan had already resigned. Understandably, we are sorry, because we failed.
Pretty Good Spin With the Lipstick Wand on That Pig, Yoric!
“fueled by angry crowds and incompetent news reporting.”
I’d call it “incompetent Corporate Values”, the angry crowds as you call them, are in reality a dismayed and shocked crowd. Shocked by this action of bigotry. To continue to spin your story to justify your Mozilla Corporate actions, just makes the Pig that much more uglier.
Out of curiosity, what media form has been providing “incompetent reporting”? I’d believe that if it was from the dominant liberal and biased Mainstream media sources, if only they would report on it at all, let alone factually.
Not buying it Yoric, Can’t Kiss That Pig!!! It has “curse” written all offer it!
Former Firefox User,
Eric
Definitely. If that’s not clear in my blog entry, I will try and rephrase it.
Well, that’s the thing: it’s not a matter of spinning – the Mozilla Corporation didn’t take any of the actions of which we are accused. In hindsight, we could have handled communication better, but that’s about it. Could you perhaps detail what actions you believe we did that would need spinning?
I have seen dozens of articles all over the net reporting absolutely imaginary news on the story. I don’t remember them all, but from the top of my head, I remember an article in the Wall Street Journal. Another angry (and dismayed and shocked) user informed me that the BBC reported that there were resignations at Mozilla because of Brendan Eich’s religious views, which is quite as false.
I have seen dozens of articles all over the net reporting absolutely imaginary news on the story.
Given the first set of comments on your post I’d argue your own article fits that description. Those facts you got wrong undermine the credibility of the rest.
In the end it’s hard for an outsider looking in to conclude that;
1. The majority of the leadership agreed with the initial protesters given their silence during the attacks and the attempt to keep Brendan but only with a demotion.
2. The majority of the leadership could care less about the much larger group of follow on protesters given their utter silence.
3. That the corporate statement about tolerance and accepting all views is at best footnoted with “as long as the right people still like us” and at worst utter BS.
Am I correct about the following points?
1. Mozilla sopports the LGBT community
2. most mozillians support the LGBT community
(Both things are stated in the very first lines of every single post I have read but maybe one or two)
3. Mozilla is an organization with a “progressive vision” populated mostly by “progressive” people, besides some rare exceptions.
(In the same time Mozilla prides itself for its “diversity”. I would like to know how many people inside Mozilla’s “diversity” share Eich’s positions or any other “not-progressive” position and how those people feel being part of the “diversity”.)
4. the LGBT community wanted Eich out because of his donation and his opinion on the “same-sex marriage” law. Mozilla and mozillians disagree with Eich, ojected his actions about the known proposition, they strongly support the LGBT community but in the same time they supported Eich and asked him to stay.
(one could say “ok Mozilla supports the LGBT community in everything but this case”. But then why mozillians write “when Eich was appointed CEO I felt uncomfortable, I did not agree, etc… then I supported him”? And what does “support” mean? To not beat somebody with a stick? To pretend frienship and stab his back later? Difficult to say.)
If what I wrote above is correct, Mozilla (and mozillians) should be used in dictionaries as example of the word “hypocrisy”. Or “confused ideas” at best.
More precisely, Mozilla supports equality including marriage equality. Personally, I believe that supporting equality is a very good thing, but that it’s not Mozilla’s role to be for or against marriage equality, but it seems that this is pretty much expected of most US companies these days.
I believe that most Mozillians who blog support marriage equality. Given the size of the Mozilla community, it is hard to be sure whether the majority of Mozillians support it, but I believe that this is not the case. There are many countries with Mozillians in which being LGBT is not acceptable and gay marriage would be unthinkable.
I have no clear idea what “progressive” means so I can’t really answer that.
I can’t speak for the LGBT community – indeed, the blow that hit Brendan Eich came mostly from a marketing ploy by OKCupid. I have no idea whether the LGBT community had anything to do with it.
What I can tell you, however, is Brendan Eich was completely capable of keeping his political views and beliefs private, just as almost all employees of the Mozilla Corporation and members of the Mozilla Community. We all share an ideal of an Open Web as a tool that empowers users with Freedom of Speech, Privacy and Education. On just about every other topic, we disagree with each other, and that’s ok, we can work with that.
I am not going to claim that there are never frictions. We have seen a few Mozillians asking for Brendan’s resignation, but far more blogging and tweeting their support for his appointment as CEO, regardless of their political positions.
Did I manage to answer your questions?
You might also wish to read the following blog entry, that recapitulates the situation: https://medium.com/p/7645a4bf8a2
I have read EVERY post available and the official communication from Mozilla.
Probably I meet some cultural barrier when I read blogs and official communication because I am italian, not american. I don’t mean the language but both cultural conventions and what is hidden between the lines.
That said, I reinstate that Mozilla and mozillians (of course only the ones I could read something from) have been inconsistent and ambiguous.
My idea is that Mozilla and mozillians got stuck like the deer in front of the car lights because they rationally understood that it made sense to support Eich but in the same time they “felt” they could not because they are “supporters” of “equality”. Here I am not going to discuss if the very concept of “equality” makes sense or not (it does not 🙂 ).
“Given the size of the Mozilla community, it is hard to be sure whether…”
Yes, that is a good way to not answer ANY question. The probabilistic approach so that whatever event has a probability that is different than zero, then you cannot be “sure” of anything. About the “many country”, I know since I live in one of them. In fact the whole “Eich vs the LGBT community” is an all-american show. But that is now what I meant, The point is, once people is somehow “selected” to become mozillians, I expect “diversity” to be near zero. Then the “I am part of the LGBT community” and “I support the LGBT community” is rather close and EXPECTED as requisite to belong to Mozilla.
In short “progressive” means “leftists”. In the anglosphere usually people are divided in “progressives” and “conservatives”. “Progressives” is a generic container that takes the place of what in other countries can be something between “vaguely socialist” and “hardcore communist”.
In a democracy there is nothing wrong to be “progressive” or “conservative”. The problem is when inside some organization 99% people are “progressive” and they claim to be a “diverse” environment. They can be “diverse” for skin or hair color but not about opinions.
Just to be sure: have you read the posts from Planet Mozilla? This is the de facto voice of the community. This will not make the whole situation easier to understand, as voices are varied, but you might get a better view of what happened before and after Brendan’s resignation.
Not really. Of course, I cannot provide numbers. I know a few community members (including one MoCo employee) who are against gay marriage. We don’t really discuss this a lot, so as I reiter, it’s hard to be sure about statistics, but my suspicion is that they actually are the majority. I believe that most employees who have an opinion are for gay marriage. Many simply don’t care one way or another.
Have I succeeded at answering your question this time?
As I mentioned in my blog post, we are united by our mission of the Open Web, and we do not discuss politics all that often. When we do, it’s sometimes spectacular of disagreement. I am not going to give you statistics, because I simply do not have them. I can tell you that in my office, those who have an interest in politics appear to be in majority “vaguely socialist”. Other offices seem to be very different, so I’m not even going to try and guess about the population you mention in your previous comments.
Now, you were initially asking me also about the vision of Mozilla. You can find that vision here. It was drafted by Brendan Eich and others. I will let you decide for yourself whether it is progressive/leftist.
I don’t know Mozilla’s written policy regarding the LGBT “community” and marriage equality. IMO people can twist the words of “Mozilla supports the LGBT community” to suit their personal agenda. But I think it’s fair to say that Mozilla supports equality for ALL it’s employees, period. I think that’s the message that should be emphasized.
Ok, thanks for the patience. BTW I am not angry, just disappointed.
Fair enough. Note that I have been discussing with angry people, too.
As that’s written, I think that’s technically accurate, but misleading. Most people don’t know the difference between the Mozilla Corporation and the Mozilla Foundation, so will read that as ‘were not Mozilla employees’.
Good point, I’ll clarify (and fix the spelling mistake).
[…] begins? Just saw this via the Mozilla planet blog, A curse and a blessing | Il y a du thé renversé au bord de la table In the comments for this blog post appears to be a reply by Brendan Eich, BrendanEich […]
Now I’ve been on the net going back to running a BBS in the 80’s and I’m wondering a few things:
1. What do social issues have to do with opensource or the promotion of free access to information? As you are witnessing now the global social issues will destroy your original mandate if you dabble.
2. Research of publicly accessible data reveals that these individuals (Chris McAvoy, Chloe Varelidi, John Bevan, Jessica Klein, and Sydney Moyer) took to Twitter and brought their politics to the workplace. All have gone off radar since starting this mess for the corporation. Are none of these are Mozilla employees? I believe all list themselves as employees of Mozilla.
3. Let’s not be disingenuous here, the pressure (2 gay app writers, a dating site, and 5 disgruntled employees) was created by other employees to force Eich’s resignation. We even have their Twitter posts stating as such. This pressure created the impression that the company was now under threat of boycott by the gay community at large. Funny how it turns out that pressure was illusionary and that the REAL public outcry would be as it has. So yes, he was forced out and as a gentleman withdrew so as to not offend any longer. No?
If I have any of the facts above wrong then please do correct me.
I believe that some social issues have everything to do with open-source (free speech, privacy, education, etc.), but if you are talking about gay marriage, I fully agree that taking any position on this topic is not in Mozilla’s scope. I hear it is pretty much the standard stance of companies with a Californian HQ these days, but I will not defend this choice of the Mozilla leadership.
I remember that 4 Mozillians asked for Brendan’s resignation for political reasons. The list might be a little longer, I’m not really planning to check. These Mozillians are employees of the Mozilla Foundation (technically not the same thing as Mozilla Corporation, but close – Brendan was not their CEO, fwiw).
Of course, many more Mozillians stood up and supported Brendan. Sadly, the media decided to relay only the first tweets you mention.
I’m not sure I understand your first sentence.
Anyway, the “dating site” you mention organized a petition that gathered more than 70.000 signatures in three days. Mozilla as a whole (and certainly Brendan in particular, although I don’t have the details) was being harassed over all internet channels. Calls to boycott were reaching new websites and blogs every few hours.
I would say that the pressure was very real, just as I consider the current pressure real.
Maybe I’m missing your point?
This is my understanding, yes.
Did I answer all the questions you had?
Well considering you did not refute my presented facts and answered my questions positively I think I would have to be satisfied. Thanks for your time and response.
“I believe that some social issues have everything to do with open-source (free speech, privacy, education, etc.), but if you are talking about gay marriage, I fully agree that taking any position on this topic is not in Mozilla’s scope. I hear it is pretty much the standard stance of companies with a Californian HQ these days, but I will not defend this choice of the Mozilla leadership.”
In my opinion Mozilla shouldn’t have taken a position about this (LGBT issue) as it is *not* something related to the fight for an open web.
Doing this over and over again gives me the impression that somehow LGBT issues, like fighting for gay marriage rights, are important for Mozilla.
What Mozilla [and may also its employees (including the ones asking Brendan to resign)] should have done is to follow Brendans original example, which is: Keep politics at home and *only* fight for the open web; THAT way Mozilla would have shown it is different and that it wouldn’t go with the flow by trying to take a popular position about a certain political topic.
It is not too late for Mozilla to do this, although all signs are not promising as the issue *STILL* pops up in communication (even indirectly in de FAQ on the Mozilla Blog about Brendan’s resignation…)
I agree that Mozilla Corporation shouldn’t have taken a position about this. I do not know the reasoning that led to this statement. This was done while Brendan was CEO so he may have been part of this, I have no idea.
Indeed, a few years ago, after a heated debate inside Mozilla, it was decided that Mozilla simply did not hold any position on the topic and that discussions on gay marriage should be kept outside of Mozilla and its communication channels. I assume that the MoFo employees who asked Brendan to resign did not understand the consequences of their acts. Unfortunately, the OKCupid campaign and the media storm against Mozilla and Brendan hurt us a lot and in many ways. For some reason, this caused us to release a statement that does not follow our own practices or guidelines.
This is being discussed inside the Mozilla community. I can only hope that we will return to our previous stance.
While he wasn’t fired. I didn’t hear one word standing up for him & his rights!
I realize that we failed to make our words heard by the public or the media. However, we stood for him and his rights.
Look on this very blog, or on the Mozilla Planet, which is the de facto voice of the Mozilla community (you will need to scroll back by a few days to see the support that came before he resigned).
We are being criticized by some of the people who need us most.
I think you’ve got that backwards. Along with a lot of other things wrong with your perspective.
Would you care to elaborate?
He’s being technically correct. Access to opensource code and information is needed in countries that have exceptionally conservative values (to put it nicely), unfortunately Mozilla by acting as it has with Eich has now officially isolated itself from many cultures and systems of belief, which is directly counter to Mozilla’s original stated goals. This of course what what Eich, even if somewhat clumsily, tried to express when making reference to other social belief systems in one of his recent posts.
The core problem is that executive management didn’t slap down employees who called for BE’s firing because of his political views/actions. Those individuals felt free saying someone else should be fired because of their political beliefs, not realizing that the same standard can now be applied to them.
It really says, loud and clear, that only certain beliefs are allowed to be expressed. Not much diversity there.
I was a paid member to Netscape so many years ago, but I am now Firefox free on my active systems (I will purge any that become active again as I come across them). I had been dabbling with Chrome already and I am going to play with Pale Moon now as well.
Mozilla has just committed suicide. Hope it was worth it for the cause.
How is this any different than past witch hunts that get the opposite reaction?
Actually, to the best of my knowledge, the ~4 employees who spoke about Brendan never said that anybody should be fired. They asked Brendan to resign, which is quite different. It says loud and clear that Mozilla respects the right of employees to express themselves, no more, no less.
As for a “witch hunt”, well, I have difficulties believing that ~4 people out of ~1000 expressing their disagreement (even in the form of calling for a resignation) qualifies as a witch hunt. Now if you are talking about OKCupid’s campaign against Brendan and Mozilla, that’s something else – but you should complain to OKCupid, not to Mozilla.
Actually, to the best of my knowledge, the ~4 employees who spoke about Brendan never said that anybody should be fired. They asked Brendan to resign, which is quite different. It says loud and clear that Mozilla respects the right of employees to express themselves, no more, no less.
As we used to say in the military, “Don’t piss on my boot and tell me it’s raining.”
I work for a Fortune 500 company. The day I publicly call on my CEO to resign I know I’m setting in motion a process that will end in my unemployment or his. It is most likely the former but if I make enough publicity and have the right cause it might go the other way.
Historically that right cause generally involved criminal law or immoral behavior. In this case I will bet paycheck to paycheck those four employees believed they had the later. For that to be the case they had to believe within Mozilla Corp the culture was such that contributing to a pro-Prop 8 group would be considered not a foolish or even bigoted act but an immoral one.
Second, they had to assume that people who the Mozilla Corp board would consider important moral judges would agree.
Those employees were right. If they were wrong they would be unemployed now not Brendan.
Further evidence that they were right is the ongoing refusal of Mozilla Corp to honestly and openly respond to those protesting the resignation (which this post’s comments prove was under threat of demotion below the position prior to him being CEO). Instead we get a spun FAQ and a statement about diversity.
If Mozilla Corp had been honest about everything I might still have Firefox and Filezilla running on my personal machines. However, being honest about being close-minded ideologues they spun out a claim they welcome everyone.
In the end you were happy to embrace outside forces when they agreed with them but you are upset that outside forces dare to try an influence things when you disagree with those outside forces.