Maybe we will all get lucky and he will do a startup -- it isn't like the web technology world is mature yet. His political donations and personal beliefs probably wouldn't be an issue in a small, purely commercial organization.
Oh really? Do you suppose many VCs will want to invest in his startup, knowing that a crowd of zealots will be chomping at the bit to protest them and boycott their other investments?
I'm afraid he may be effectively blacklisted in this industry now.
> I don't think most people who disliked him as CEO had a problem with him as CTO of Mozilla.
I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to oust him from the CTO position as well. It's not like it took that much effort on their part. Sign a petition here, post blog post there and presto Eich resigned.
I heard a rumor Brendan Eich was going to start working on a new project with a couple of his staunchest and loudest supporters, Eric Raymond and Russell Nelson, who were also forced out of their jobs as leaders of Open Source companies because they were bigots.
Following the precedent of Project GNU's rebranding "FireFox" as "IceCat" for their own political and ethical reasons, they're going to rebrand "FireFox" as "WhistleDog", and develop a web browser aligned with their own political and ethical ideology, which is more inclusive of people who think it's wrong to be intolerant of intolerant people, and less tolerant of communists like RMS, bullies like homosexual activists, and blacks, who Raymond and Nelson describe as "stupid", "violent" and "lazy".
> "Following the precedent of Project GNU's rebranding "FireFox" as "IceCat" for their own political and ethical reasons"
Do you mean the issue of Mozillas restrictions on the "Firefox" name, which the FSF/GNU think are at odds with their notion of "Free Software"? Do you mean you are annoyed with the FSF for their entire purpose in this world?
You misunderstand. I'm an old friend of RMS from the 1980's, and I'm on his side, although not quite as ... RMSque as he is.
He's recently been asking me for advice about packaging node.js desktop apps, which I've been discussing with him. Does anyone else have any advice or opinions or corrections to add, please?
RMS> The questions I'm concerned with are very limited: they have to do with how node applications fit into the existing and general framework of GNU/Linux. If I can install them with apt-get, start them with a shell command or from a menu, and use them to operate on ordinary files in my file system with no Internet connection, then they're just as good as C or Python or Lisp programs. So I don't need to know any more -- I can conclude "there's no problem here, everything's ok," and move on to other issues.
RMS> Can you confirm for me whether this is possible?
RMS> If not, then they have a problem and I'd like to know more about the problem.
Don> Yes, I think node will suit your needs quite nicely.
Don> So yes I think you can conclude that there is no problem and it's ok to use it!
Don> Node has its own package manager called "npm" that might be more appropriate to use than apt-get, since it knows a lot more about what is going on with node, and solve the problem of dependencies in a much nicer way than apt-get can.
Don> For example, you can install packages in the system globally to share with other users, or locally in a project to isolate projects from each other and make them independent.
Don> I believe you could still package node software up so it can be installed by apt-get of course, but it would be more monolithic and system wide, and not be able to take advantage of all the things you npm can do because it knows it is dealing with node, instead of trying to solve a much more general problem of linux software installation.
Don> Also, it is a much fresher simpler approach to some of the problems that gnu configure solves, since it abstracts a lot of the system dependencies, so there is no need for the artificial intelligence layer that is implemented by shell scrips, and all the guessing and probing and syntactic backflips to maintain compatibility with old versions of Xenix for ZX80 and AT&T answering machine cassette tape drivers and stuff like that.
Don> So I think using the node/npm ecosystem instead of the older stuff would make installation and configuration about four to five orders of magnitude simpler and more elegant.
Don> Definitely there is no problem using it for what you want the same way as python or whatever scripting language.
Don> Not only is node.js useful for implementing servers of all persuasions, but you can also use it to develop local desktop applications with or without user interfaces,
RMS> Can you tell me more about this possibility? Perhaps tell me the specific URLs I can fetch to read about it? I don't browse sites unrelated to me from my own computer, but I can fetch a specific article by sending mail to a demon.
Don> Here is another alternative, that uses QT instead of WebKit, which is what you should use if for some perverse reason you want to severely limit the scope of people who know how to or are willing to program the user interface, and also severely narrow the scope of what you can do with the user interface and which libraries and frameworks you can use: https://github.com/arturadib/node-qt
Don> And somewhere in-between, but hardly as effective as simply using a real web browser like WebKit to do real web things, and certainly not stable or mature: bzbarsky↗
He's still the buck-stops-here person for the module owner system in the Mozilla Project. He's not involved with the Mozilla Corporation as far as I can tell.
Stuff pretty rarely gets escalated to that point, sure. I mean, the position exists for cases when normal means of resolving code ownership disagreements totally fail.
Maybe that's just obvious if you're familiar with the governance structure of the Mozilla Project but not clear to people who haven't been involved in it...
I'm familiar with the governance structure of Mozilla. I'm not a distinguished engineer or anything, but familiar enough. There are employees parroting that Brendan is still has an important position in the structure. Brendan's comment implies he does not consider that the case.
I wasn't trying to imply that you're personally not familiar with the governance structure. I can see how what I said could be read that way, and I apologize for that. It was meant as more of a general statement...
In any case I've seen one technical issue escalated to Brendan so far since he resigned, after mailing list wrangling back and forth for a while got nowhere. He made a call on it (a compromise of sorts, as it happens), and people abided by that call from what I can tell.
He clearly has a lot less impact on decisionmaking now than he did before, which is what you see in his comments. I can totally understand why he feels the way he does. But I think he's underselling the importance he still has.
For what I know, nope. He has resigned from any position. I don't know if Mozilla tried to offer him another job or his previous role of CTO, but in a situation like that one he ended in, I think he just decided to sever all the ties.
MoCo's board tried to convince him to stay the course as CEO or CTO, but he felt he should sever all ties with Mozilla to draw fire away from the organization:
I am a Mozilla employee, but I have no first-hand knowledge of what the board did. In Mozilla town hall meetings, multiple board members said they pleaded with Brendan to stay. I don't think they or Brendan would mislead us, so perhaps Brendan is using a very precise meaning of "tried to convince me to stay as CEO."
He does not know otherwise and is mistaken. When Brendan's comment dispelling the rumour that he'd been offered to remain as CEO it was brought up in the Mozilla governance newsgroup and other places. Mitchell Baker clarified that he was not asked to stay on as CEO but was asked to stay on in another, lower level, position. Unfortunately some employees still repeat the false claim.
The Mozilla FAQ on CEO Resignation says "Brendan was not fired and was not asked by the Board to resign. Brendan voluntarily submitted his resignation. The Board acted in response by inviting him to remain at Mozilla in another C-level position. Brendan declined that offer. The Board respects his decision." [1]
"Another C-level position" definitely means not CEO, and probably means CTO.
So Brendan is not disagreeing with the posting, he's just not stating that he was offered a job as CTO or whatever.
I don't know where cpeterso got the idea they asked him to "stay the course as CEO or CTO", but the FAQ makes it pretty clear he was not asked to stay as CEO, and was probably offered his CTO job back. Are there any other "C-level positions [2]" that he is qualified for? Probably not CDO. ;)
Edit: cpeterso may have been quoting yoric from here: [3] So I don't know where yorik got that idea from. But Brendan corrected his incorrect information, without actually openly revealing what the correct information was.
cpeterso got the idea from other Mozilla employees. The "he as offered to stay as CEO" grew legs when employees started responding on the governance newsgroup to people complaining about the firing. One person (Yoric I think) said he was offered a position. Then it grew to offered to stay as CEO. Then it grew to "Brendan even got angry about being asked to stay on" or some such statement. It's a classic case of incremental additions to an originally incorrect statement.
Brendan set the record straight and after that the official Mozilla line was clarified. The FAQ was updated to be clearer after Brendan made those comments.
Me too. Very sad that they lost one of the most significant people for Mozilla and for the whole web as well over some nonsense, to think of it. I wonder if it actually would be that bad if they just ignored those, umh, haters?
And now what? I'm sure this Andreas Gal is very notable and significant person as well, but I'm not really sure I ever heard of him, and I surely heard of Eich, FWIF. Well, I hope he does well and will be good choice for the CTO chair, but all that stuff is sad somehow anyway.
Hmm, this looks like a bug. I'll try to fix it before the edit window expires. Alternatively, if you want to email an edit to hn@ycombinator.com, we'll put it in for you.
How is it thought police for the community around an organization to not want the organization to have a CEO that is diametrically opposed to the beliefs of many in community?
Because this is about something he _did_ not something he thinks?
> It is the job of the Thought Police to uncover and punish thoughtcrime and thought-criminals.
> thoughtcrime is the criminal act of holding unspoken beliefs or doubts that oppose or question the ruling party
Note the unspoken part of that definition. Eich took steps, actual steps, not even just speech, to limit the rights of other people. That's why it's not thought police.
Treating people with less dignity than someone else is a _huge_ thing, this isn't just a petty political issue. The Mozilla community, a private group of individuals, raise many concerns that someone willing to limit the dignity afforded to certain groups of people through actual actions that person has taken was not fit to be the head of their organization. How is that thoughtpolice
EDIT: Downvotes without comments do so much to move the conversation forward, thanks!
>Note the unspoken part of that definition. Eich took steps, actual steps, not even just speech, to limit the rights of other people. That's why it's not thought police.
The "actual steps" were his democratic rights as a citizen in a free country. It was a matter put to vote, and he backed a specific outcome of the vote. Neither the vote was illegal, not he acted on anything outside of that.
Just because you think other people should "obviously have that right" doesn't say anything. I think that people should have the right to consume whatever drug they want freely, and that they should have the right to not be executed by the state.
Are all persons who voted / backed laws against those things oppresive, or it's only your particular pet cause?
> The "actual steps" were his democratic rights as a citizen in a free country
And he didn't get sent to jail for doing so. He was told by a private group of individuals that his actions and views were not welcomed by said group. Noöne was jailed or oppressed or dehumanized.
> Are all persons who voted / backed laws against those things oppresive, or it's only your particular pet cause?
Yes, anyone who acts to reduce the dignity of another human is oppressive. Gay marriage is only one such issue.
Because this is about something he _did_ not something he thinks?
> It is the job of the Thought Police to uncover and punish thoughtcrime and thought-criminals.
> thoughtcrime is the criminal act of holding unspoken beliefs or doubts that oppose or question the ruling party
Note the unspoken part of that definition. Eich took steps, actual steps, not even just speech, to limit the rights of other people. That's why it's not thought police.
Treating people with less dignity than someone else is a _huge_ thing, this isn't just a petty political issue. The Mozilla community, a private group of individuals, raise many concerns that someone willing to limit the dignity afforded to certain groups of people through actual actions that person has taken was not fit to be the head of their organization. How is that thoughtpolice?
it's likely all candidate higher-ups in mozilla will be required to reveal all past political affiliations to make sure their beliefs don't conflict with mozilla values such as acceptance and tolerance of people of differing opinions/backgrounds.
It's not about differing opinions, it's about actions which exclude and/or oppress people.
It's one thing to campaign for the republican party, or donate money to them. That's not a problem. The problem is donating money to oppress a portion of the population based on their beliefs. That is an action, not a belief.
>It's not about differing opinions, it's about actions which exclude and/or oppress people.
Well, for me the Republican party excludes and oppresses people. If MANY MANY more ways than banning gay marriage ever did. From starting all those wars under false pretexes that resulted to tens of thousands of casualties to everyday issues like health coverage.
Should we fire every CEO/CTO that's donated to it?
Or is it only an "action which excludes and/or opresses people" if you specifically disagree with it?
(Oh, and I don't have than much better an opinion on the Democrats either, just think the Reps are like a few percentage points worse -- plus it would get more people to agree with my statement).
The point here is that "we" did not fire anyone. Members of the Mozilla community expressed an opinion that they didn't want a CEO who had previously acted to restrict the rights of a particular group. Some expressed this by ceasing their use of Mozilla products, and some of those people also encouraged others to do the same.
Mozilla (and Eich) decided that this expression from the community was sufficient for Eich to step down as CEO. No one forced them to do it, much like no one forced them to make Eich CEO in the first place.
This is exactly how public dialogue is supposed to work. If you find that a particular executive at a company has taken actions you disagree with and this upsets you to the degree that you wish to stop using their products, you're free to do so. You're also free to talk to others and encourage them to do the same. The company is free to retain that executive or remove them depending on how they feel about the public outcry you've raised.
This is free speech and public dialogue. It's people deciding what products they want to use and talking about it. It's companies deciding what to do based on what's good for them and their objectives. Which one of those things do you object to?
Of course it was free speech. Every party involved were well within their rights to act as they did. What crimes do you believe were committed by those who voiced their displeasure?
A number, though, arguably violated California Penal Code Section 422 (I say "arguably" because whether they did depends on how seriously the threat recipient took them). Of course they may not be in California, but many other jurisdictions have similar laws.
There were no such comments on HN, thankfully. I didn't follow the story on reddit or twitter much myself, but I _did_ talk to a fair number of people at Mozilla during the goings on. (I work at Mozilla, if that wasn't clear.)
There were certainly mails or blog comments (I'm not sure which, and the two are equivalent anyway when comments are moderated) with such threats in response to Lars Lohn's blog post (quoted near the bottom of <http://www.twobraids.com/2014/04/back-into-light.html>).
Of course I have no way to prove that to you. An earlier version of Lars' post (before he deleted it in his fit of pique) had an explicit edit mentioning the threats, but even Google's cache now only has <http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:eKzKHuO....
I'm told (more second-hand than in Lars' case, but by people I trust) that others received similar threats as well. Again, I have no way to convince you that this is true.
You must have never had the "I'm not touching you" game played to you.
Surely you all are not imaginative enough if you think that the union of the set of behaviors one can form that are within their rights are all desirable behaviors.
I mean, strictly speaking the NSA was well within its legal rights to do what it did. But what was that quote by Jon Stewart, "I think you're misunderstanding the perceived problem here, Mr. President. No one is saying you broke any laws. We're just saying it's a little bit weird that you didn't have to."
> You must have never had the "I'm not touching you" game played to you.
> Surely you all are not imaginative enough if you think that the union of the set of behaviors one can form that are within their rights are all desirable behaviors.
I didn't say that all of behaviors seen were desirable, and upon rereading my comment, I have no idea how you got the impression that I was.
> I mean, strictly speaking the NSA was well within its legal rights to do what it did. But what was that quote by Jon Stewart, "I think you're misunderstanding the perceived problem here, Mr. President. No one is saying you broke any laws. We're just saying it's a little bit weird that you didn't have to."
Exactly which behaviours seen during that scandal do you think should have been illegal or were borderline illegal? I am getting the feeling that you saw something that I did not.
Bear in mind that I draw a strong distinction between "undesirable" and "should probably be illegal".
> Exactly which behaviours seen during that scandal do you think should have been illegal or were borderline illegal?
I wish you the best of luck with this argumentative approach -- I've been trying it for weeks, and no one on the other side appears to realize that legally or socially preventing what happened with Eich and the Mozilla community would be far, far more destructive to discourse, speech, etc than what happened here. The position itself (that what happened to Eich was somehow wrong, in a sense that can be well-defined) is internally inconsistent.
I should probably stop replying, but again, what specific thing that happened (as a step in the process that led to Eich stepping down as CEO) do you actually want to stop? You can't just wave your hands and say you don't want people to lose their job because of their opinions. The series of steps that happened here each make sense and taking action that would somehow prevent what happened would have to stop one of those steps from occurring. Which step? How would you stop it without banning speech or preventing companies from acting in their own best interest?
> How about, nobody fucking makes another guy lose his job for what he votes or backs?
So, if it came out that an executive at some company had donated money to the KKK, they should be somehow forced to keep him on? This position isn't inconsistent, it's incoherent.
> So, if it came out that an executive at some company had donated money to the KKK, they should be somehow forced to keep him on?
What if it came out that an executive at some company had donated money to the Republican Party?
But either way, no one is saying Mozilla should have been forced to retain Eich against their will. Rather, Mozilla's Board had decided he was the best guy for the job, despite his thoughtcrime, until enough people and companies started ganging up on them and threatening the viability of the project.
Expressing your speech is one thing, boycotting is one thing (indeed, think of all the people now boycotting Mozilla), but trying to burn down a project a là OkCupid is a whole 'nother bag.
> What if it came out that an executive at some company had donated money to the Republican Party?
Then... people would be free to boycott them? The company would be free to decide, like Mozilla did, whether it's worth keeping that executive on?
I agree that the OKCupid thing was a little distasteful, but that's mostly because it was so blatantly a ploy to get themselves some of the press surrounding the situation. I still wouldn't want to enact any policy that would ban them from doing so, however.
> Exactly which behaviours seen during that scandal do you think should have been illegal or were borderline illegal?
Not a single one. Now I'm also wondering what you're seeing.
> Bear in mind that I draw a strong distinction between "undesirable" and "should probably be illegal".
Great, because that's what the opposition to the witchhunt has consistently been: Not that the majority of the witchhunt activities have been technically illegal, but that the acts themselves are undesirable in a community of differing views.
The precedence set by what happened to Eich because of his bigoted views (again, legal or not) should be sending panic through the progressive communities. But instead it's the opposite, people claiming that hunting this witch is OK because look, he's actually a witch.
And it's usually the same kind of people who will trot out the quote about "First they came for the Jews, ..." who are hypocritically clawing down the door to catch this particular member of the untermensch.
I don't understand the "witchhunt" terminology you're using. Want to run for Grand Dragon of your local KKK chapter? Fine, knock yourself out, but you're delusional if you think that won't come up when you're running for mayor several years later.
The KKK, like Eich, is motivated by hatred for what certain people are, not what they do. They may claim otherwise but nobody with a three-digit IQ believes them.
If you think your argument through a bit further, I'm sure you'll see the distinction.
>The KKK, like Eich, is motivated by hatred for what certain people are, not what they do. They may claim otherwise but nobody with a three-digit IQ believes them.
Well, zealot Christians (and organisations like the Inquisition) hated people "for what they did" (e.g extra-marital affairs, being an atheist, not going to church enough, magic spells, etc) not for what they were. I don't see how that's any improvement over hating them for what they are. Hate is hate.
I also have a three digit IQ and I don't believe Eich hates gay people. In fact he has worked closely with lots of them perfectly for ages (by their own admission). He might love marriage too much as a specific, and historically specified, tradition though, which is a different thing.
> Mozilla (and Eich) decided that this expression from the community was sufficient for Eich to step down as CEO. No one forced them to do it, much like no one forced them to make Eich CEO in the first place.
You should research the labor concept of "constructive dismissal".
As it stands it wasn't just an outcry. You had companies like OKCupid hounding Firefox users who had nothing to do with Eich's donation. It was a pitchfork-and-torch expedition through and through, despite the fact that it all falls under the letter of the law regarding freedom of speech.
But as I tried to point out when this was all going on, freedom to speak does not imply that all speech is necessarily right.
What I don't understand is how the same people who will talk about "chilling effects" from government surveillance fail to understand the same exact principle applied elsewhere.
Since you talked around my question by falsely equating governmental and private action, let's revisit -- which of:
People deciding what products they want to use and talking about it.
Companies deciding what to do based on what's good for them and their objectives.
Do you object to? (OKCupid's actions, of course, fall under both categories.) The consequences of any action you could take to prevent this type of behavior would be much more dire, chilling-effect-wise, than the occasional troubling instance such as this one.
> Companies deciding what to do based on what's good for them and their objectives.
As a long-time user of alternative browsers (e.g. Konqueror) I certainly object to companies deciding to take specific actions on their web sites for web browsers for reasons that are not clearly technical. If for no other reason than as a net neutrality issue.
Again, just because people and companies technically have the legal right to do something doesn't make it a good idea.
Companies can be as powerful as states. Heck, some companies have budgets larger that many states. And historically they have been involved from getting laws passed to their favor, to actually putting their own people in power. Search "banana republic" in wikipedia for some of the most known examples of that.
So I don't see anything better from the state bullying people to a private company doing the same. If anything it's worse, since the state has some democratic controls in place (at least in theory) and the majority elects their policies and representatives. A private company can be the rule and whimses of just one jerk.
You, like many others, are pretending like this was all polite discussion and ignoring the death threats various people received just for saying in public that they supported Brendan as CEO. This is _not_ "exactly how public dialogue is supposed to work", though sadly it's exactly how it usually works in the US nowadays. And the part I object to, in case it wasn't clear, is precisely the intimidation tactics used.
false analogy. it's not like eich donated money to the mormon church who then used it to do bad things. he donated directly to the prop 8 people, which was pretty much all bathwater and no baby.
As with every other Mozilla story posted over the past couple weeks, this may end up getting flagged/controversy-filtered off the front page quickly. Dang, if that happens, could we possibly get an exception? I'm tired of everything Mozilla-related getting swept under the rug around here.
May be you need to grow up? This is just the beginning of end of free speech where minority gets their way ousting a co-founder for $1000 donation six years ago without any proof of inappropriate behavior.
Andreas is the perfect choice for this role. Top notch technical abilities, and very nice human being if you like the "no bullshit" way of doing things.
100% agreed. I had the pleasure of working with Andreas (and you, if you're the Fabrice D. I think you are) on the Boot2Gecko project, and he was a great project leader. He's technically adept, he knows how to work with people, and just gets things done.
I'm very optimistic about Mozilla's future with him as CTO.
What does it matter if Andreas is technically competent when he has to manage activists rather than programmers?!
There are people working at Mozilla today, many of whom are pulling in a decent salary, who believe they are working for social justice charity rather than a technology non-profit.
Firefox is the golden goose but they might eventually bankrupt themselves by spending resources on non-core missions, like the GNOME foundation who had to whip out the begging bowl because they spent all their money on a women's outreach program rather than developing technology.
>There are people working at Mozilla today, many of whom are pulling in a decent salary, who believe they are working for social justice charity rather than a technology non-profit.
ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
You're an idiot, and I think you even know that you're completely misrepresenting the situation which I guess just makes you a liar.
Is Gerv Markham the person who ironically claims to be "Hacking for Christ [1]", a religious leader who preached love and acceptance instead of hatred and discrimination [2]?
The same Gerv who posted an anti-gay-marriage petition to his blog [3] that was syndicated to the public Planet Mozilla forum, publicly calling on Mozilla community members to support the Coalition for Marriage [4], a homophobic hate group [5] that endorsed the legal codification of marriage in the UK as "the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others," [6] by distributing misleading gay marriage leaflets [7]?
The same Gerv whose bigoted post to Mozilla's public forum ignited a controversy about what kinds of content Mozilla tolerates on its Web properties, and triggered an internal discussion examining the nature and desirability of community standards for inclusion [8], which set the stage for the reaction to the revelation of Brendan Eich's $1000 donation in support of Proposition 8 [9], which eventually led to his ignoble resignation as CEO of Mozilla [10], and earned him the humiliating endorsement of support and call to arms from Eric Raymond, who threw down the gauntlet by proclaiming:
"Then I think it is now the duty of every friend of free speech and every enemy of political bullying to pledge not only to donate $1000 to the next anti-gay-marriage initiative to come along, but to say publicly that they have done so as a protest against bullying." [11]
Do you have any problem with giving bullies a taste of their own medicine, by exercising free speech, just like they enjoy?
And in what way were my posts abusive, or not factual, or not backed up by references and citation to prove my points?
I'd certainly characterize many of the responses from anti-gay-marriage bigots as abusive, Godwinesque trolling, inaccurate and completely unsupported by any facts or citations:
"Hey Don: What’s it like being so far up your own ass? John", "See, this is the idiotic propaganda which you people vomit all over the net. What frigging ‘rights’ are you talking about?", "The letter Mozilla should have written. http://t.co/jn2dNNltQY", "The irony of the current situation is the same people who cry because they are “discriminated minority” think and act like Nazis and they aggressively suppress any dissident.", "The gaystapo controls mozilla, it calls the shots. You are now working for this ugly and inhumane movement.", "The character assassination started with employees of Mozilla Foundation. Mozilla should have acted quickly and fired them. Will they still be employed?", "Are you a professional activist? Because, judging by the propagandist bull you sprout here, you sure sound like one. Eich was not ‘campaigning’ to remove any rights, he donated some money to a campaign to abolish special rights.", "Funny how gays demand tolerance from others, yet have no tolerance with those who disagree with their way of life. And pathetic Mozilla fell for it.", "We simply cannot have a civil society when the hyper sensitive and the perpetually aggrieved are allowed their way.", "I hope Mozilla goes bankrupt. I myself already convinced 150 people to stop using Mozilla on all their devices. ... With a bit of luck, I will have convinced at least 2000 people by the end of this year to stop using Mozilla. Maybe more.", "You on the other hand are way out of line and I think your pursuit of Brendan amounts to a hate crime." [12]
So, strafer32, if you think I was being abusive or unreasonable, especially compared to those other people I quoted, you must be nursing quite a persecution complex. Are you the same person who accused me of a hate crime? Since you created your account just two hours ago [13], and since you know my real name, would you please care to share your real name with us? O...
You ask in what way are your comments abusive. I believe you to be trolling because of your style of argument. You say things like [1]:
"Gert (and his supporters), do you also hate women, blacks and jews as much as you hate gays, and do you agree with Brendan Eich’s support of Patrick J. Buchanan and Ron Paul?"
In that entire comment you bring up unrelated issues involving US politicians as if trying to direct supporters of Mozilla and Brendan of being supporters of that view. People discussing with you then have to address points like that or be seen as supporting it. It's a classic trolling technique to do this.
I also find statements like the following abusive [2]:
"Apparently the people who warned me that you had such a thick skull that no outside information could get through and affect your thought processes were correct, and that makes me sad, because I had more faith in you."
In that comment you bring up the Mormon religion which I have no idea what that has to do with Mozilla or the Brendan Eich saga. Again, classic troll misdirection.
Don't invest in Apple stock if you're against abortion?
Don't invest in Apple stock if you're against software patents?
Don't invest in Apple stock if you're a member of a socialist party?
If you think what Tim Cook did was right, then you don't understand what a free market is.
Finally, please don't smear people as "deniers" just because they want to have an honest scientific debate. Or do you honestly believe someone like Freeman Dyson is a simple-minded old fool?
Just yesterday I was wondering if the CTO role would eventually be filled, and I figured if the answer was "yes" that Andreas would be the one. He's been involved in the creation of many of Mozilla's recent new projects including Firefox OS, the revamped Firefox for Android, pdf.js, and Shumway.
i would say that hes a good choice and generally "no bullshit" from bugs/mailing lists reads.
There was a funny twitter account with his name that has now been removed which was a satire of his way of handling people.
I'm not at mozilla corp. but "very nice" sounds like a stretch. I'm sure mozilla needs positive input right now - but psst :)
Andreas is not a great choice. His people skills are terrible. They are so bad that he no longer writes his own emails to employees. They have to go through a PA to make sure they have a human element.
The @RealAndreasGal twitter account that was recently deleted was so amusing because the things that it said were exactly on point. Same with the 'ShitGalSays' Tumblr account which is still around: http://shitgalsays.com/
Andreas is strongly pro-whatever partners want in Firefox OS. Expect DRM and other forms of lockdown to start appearing under his rule. He has no interest in the Mozilla mission.
Are you also the strafer32 who just created an account three hours ago to badmouth the new CEO of Mozilla and troll on the comment threads of Hacker News [1]?
I have not badmouthed the new CEO Mozilla at all. This is a thread about the new CTO. Note that I don't criticize the new CTO for his religious or other beliefs. I criticize him for not having the people skills to perform his job.
Given the age of your account and the contents of your comments I don't think you're one to throw stones.
I'm not convinced a web insider was the right choice. The web desperately needs some new thinking -- people that don't believe the technology clock stopped in 1995 with the big hand stuck on "JavaScript" and little hand on "HTML".
119 comments
[ 5.6 ms ] story [ 185 ms ] threadI'm afraid he may be effectively blacklisted in this industry now.
2) He doesn't have to be CEO; I don't think most people who disliked him as CEO had a problem with him as CTO of Mozilla.
I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to oust him from the CTO position as well. It's not like it took that much effort on their part. Sign a petition here, post blog post there and presto Eich resigned.
Following the precedent of Project GNU's rebranding "FireFox" as "IceCat" for their own political and ethical reasons, they're going to rebrand "FireFox" as "WhistleDog", and develop a web browser aligned with their own political and ethical ideology, which is more inclusive of people who think it's wrong to be intolerant of intolerant people, and less tolerant of communists like RMS, bullies like homosexual activists, and blacks, who Raymond and Nelson describe as "stupid", "violent" and "lazy".
Do you mean the issue of Mozillas restrictions on the "Firefox" name, which the FSF/GNU think are at odds with their notion of "Free Software"? Do you mean you are annoyed with the FSF for their entire purpose in this world?
He's recently been asking me for advice about packaging node.js desktop apps, which I've been discussing with him. Does anyone else have any advice or opinions or corrections to add, please?
RMS> The questions I'm concerned with are very limited: they have to do with how node applications fit into the existing and general framework of GNU/Linux. If I can install them with apt-get, start them with a shell command or from a menu, and use them to operate on ordinary files in my file system with no Internet connection, then they're just as good as C or Python or Lisp programs. So I don't need to know any more -- I can conclude "there's no problem here, everything's ok," and move on to other issues.
RMS> Can you confirm for me whether this is possible?
RMS> If not, then they have a problem and I'd like to know more about the problem.
Don> Yes, I think node will suit your needs quite nicely.
Don> So yes I think you can conclude that there is no problem and it's ok to use it!
Don> Node has its own package manager called "npm" that might be more appropriate to use than apt-get, since it knows a lot more about what is going on with node, and solve the problem of dependencies in a much nicer way than apt-get can.
Don> For example, you can install packages in the system globally to share with other users, or locally in a project to isolate projects from each other and make them independent.
Don> I believe you could still package node software up so it can be installed by apt-get of course, but it would be more monolithic and system wide, and not be able to take advantage of all the things you npm can do because it knows it is dealing with node, instead of trying to solve a much more general problem of linux software installation.
Don> Also, it is a much fresher simpler approach to some of the problems that gnu configure solves, since it abstracts a lot of the system dependencies, so there is no need for the artificial intelligence layer that is implemented by shell scrips, and all the guessing and probing and syntactic backflips to maintain compatibility with old versions of Xenix for ZX80 and AT&T answering machine cassette tape drivers and stuff like that.
Don> So I think using the node/npm ecosystem instead of the older stuff would make installation and configuration about four to five orders of magnitude simpler and more elegant.
Don> Definitely there is no problem using it for what you want the same way as python or whatever scripting language.
Don> Not only is node.js useful for implementing servers of all persuasions, but you can also use it to develop local desktop applications with or without user interfaces,
RMS> Can you tell me more about this possibility? Perhaps tell me the specific URLs I can fetch to read about it? I don't browse sites unrelated to me from my own computer, but I can fetch a specific article by sending mail to a demon.
Don> Here is one alternative that uses built-in WebKit to do the user interface: https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit
Don> Here is another alternative, that uses QT instead of WebKit, which is what you should use if for some perverse reason you want to severely limit the scope of people who know how to or are willing to program the user interface, and also severely narrow the scope of what you can do with the user interface and which libraries and frameworks you can use: https://github.com/arturadib/node-qt
Don> And somewhere in-between, but hardly as effective as simply using a real web browser like WebKit to do real web things, and certainly not stable or mature: bzbarsky ↗ He's still the buck-stops-here person for the module owner system in the Mozilla Project. He's not involved with the Mozilla Corporation as far as I can tell. strafer32 ↗ He may be but as he says himself, that's not much involvement: http://dutherenverseauborddelatable.wordpress.com/2014/04/07... bzbarsky ↗ Stuff pretty rarely gets escalated to that point, sure. I mean, the position exists for cases when normal means of resolving code ownership disagreements totally fail. strafer32 ↗ I'm familiar with the governance structure of Mozilla. I'm not a distinguished engineer or anything, but familiar enough. There are employees parroting that Brendan is still has an important position in the structure. Brendan's comment implies he does not consider that the case. bzbarsky ↗ I wasn't trying to imply that you're personally not familiar with the governance structure. I can see how what I said could be read that way, and I apologize for that. It was meant as more of a general statement... strafer32 ↗ That good to hear that he's still been active, thanks. yulaow ↗ For what I know, nope. He has resigned from any position. I don't know if Mozilla tried to offer him another job or his previous role of CTO, but in a situation like that one he ended in, I think he just decided to sever all the ties. cpeterso ↗ MoCo's board tried to convince him to stay the course as CEO or CTO, but he felt he should sever all ties with Mozilla to draw fire away from the organization: cjbprime ↗ This is incorrect (odd, since you're a Mozilla employee) -- at http://dutherenverseauborddelatable.wordpress.com/2014/04/07... Brendan says: coldtea ↗ Or you know, he says it but it's not true, and the OP knows otherwise. cpeterso ↗ I am a Mozilla employee, but I have no first-hand knowledge of what the board did. In Mozilla town hall meetings, multiple board members said they pleaded with Brendan to stay. I don't think they or Brendan would mislead us, so perhaps Brendan is using a very precise meaning of "tried to convince me to stay as CEO." strafer32 ↗ He does not know otherwise and is mistaken. When Brendan's comment dispelling the rumour that he'd been offered to remain as CEO it was brought up in the Mozilla governance newsgroup and other places. Mitchell Baker clarified that he was not asked to stay on as CEO but was asked to stay on in another, lower level, position. Unfortunately some employees still repeat the false claim. coldtea ↗ Why the downvotes? cpeterso's comment (a Mozilla employee) seems to agree with this. DonHopkins ↗ The Mozilla FAQ on CEO Resignation says "Brendan was not fired and was not asked by the Board to resign. Brendan voluntarily submitted his resignation. The Board acted in response by inviting him to remain at Mozilla in another C-level position. Brendan declined that offer. The Board respects his decision." [1] strafer32 ↗ cpeterso got the idea from other Mozilla employees. The "he as offered to stay as CEO" grew legs when employees started responding on the governance newsgroup to people complaining about the firing. One person (Yoric I think) said he was offered a position. Then it grew to offered to stay as CEO. Then it grew to "Brendan even got angry about being asked to stay on" or some such statement. It's a classic case of incremental additions to an originally incorrect statement. cpeterso ↗ Thanks for the clarification. jeroen ↗ That link says "The Board acted in response by inviting him to remain at Mozilla in another C-level position." yeukhon ↗ He still own brendan@mozilla.org (https://github.com/tc39/agendas/commit/6d5fa287a755429707e6e...)
Maybe that's just obvious if you're familiar with the governance structure of the Mozilla Project but not clear to people who haven't been involved in it...
In any case I've seen one technical issue escalated to Brendan so far since he resigned, after mailing list wrangling back and forth for a while got nowhere. He made a call on it (a compromise of sorts, as it happens), and people abided by that call from what I can tell.
He clearly has a lot less impact on decisionmaking now than he did before, which is what you see in his comments. I can totally understand why he feels the way he does. But I think he's underselling the importance he still has.
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignat...
"No one tried to convince me to stay as CEO."
"Another C-level position" definitely means not CEO, and probably means CTO.
So Brendan is not disagreeing with the posting, he's just not stating that he was offered a job as CTO or whatever.
I don't know where cpeterso got the idea they asked him to "stay the course as CEO or CTO", but the FAQ makes it pretty clear he was not asked to stay as CEO, and was probably offered his CTO job back. Are there any other "C-level positions [2]" that he is qualified for? Probably not CDO. ;)
Edit: cpeterso may have been quoting yoric from here: [3] So I don't know where yorik got that idea from. But Brendan corrected his incorrect information, without actually openly revealing what the correct information was.
[1]: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignat...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_title
[3]: http://dutherenverseauborddelatable.wordpress.com/2014/04/07...
Brendan set the record straight and after that the official Mozilla line was clarified. The FAQ was updated to be clearer after Brendan made those comments.
So the board may have tried to convince him to stay as CTO, but not as CEO.
Though this is not a sign of him actually remaining in power I guess, but more of an advisor and active contributor.
And now what? I'm sure this Andreas Gal is very notable and significant person as well, but I'm not really sure I ever heard of him, and I surely heard of Eich, FWIF. Well, I hope he does well and will be good choice for the CTO chair, but all that stuff is sad somehow anyway.
Edit: Just fixed it, I think. Please try again.
To get you inline with the beliefs of "many in the community"?
> It is the job of the Thought Police to uncover and punish thoughtcrime and thought-criminals.
> thoughtcrime is the criminal act of holding unspoken beliefs or doubts that oppose or question the ruling party
Note the unspoken part of that definition. Eich took steps, actual steps, not even just speech, to limit the rights of other people. That's why it's not thought police.
Treating people with less dignity than someone else is a _huge_ thing, this isn't just a petty political issue. The Mozilla community, a private group of individuals, raise many concerns that someone willing to limit the dignity afforded to certain groups of people through actual actions that person has taken was not fit to be the head of their organization. How is that thoughtpolice
EDIT: Downvotes without comments do so much to move the conversation forward, thanks!
The "actual steps" were his democratic rights as a citizen in a free country. It was a matter put to vote, and he backed a specific outcome of the vote. Neither the vote was illegal, not he acted on anything outside of that.
Just because you think other people should "obviously have that right" doesn't say anything. I think that people should have the right to consume whatever drug they want freely, and that they should have the right to not be executed by the state.
Are all persons who voted / backed laws against those things oppresive, or it's only your particular pet cause?
And he didn't get sent to jail for doing so. He was told by a private group of individuals that his actions and views were not welcomed by said group. Noöne was jailed or oppressed or dehumanized.
> Are all persons who voted / backed laws against those things oppresive, or it's only your particular pet cause?
Yes, anyone who acts to reduce the dignity of another human is oppressive. Gay marriage is only one such issue.
> It is the job of the Thought Police to uncover and punish thoughtcrime and thought-criminals.
> thoughtcrime is the criminal act of holding unspoken beliefs or doubts that oppose or question the ruling party
Note the unspoken part of that definition. Eich took steps, actual steps, not even just speech, to limit the rights of other people. That's why it's not thought police.
Treating people with less dignity than someone else is a _huge_ thing, this isn't just a petty political issue. The Mozilla community, a private group of individuals, raise many concerns that someone willing to limit the dignity afforded to certain groups of people through actual actions that person has taken was not fit to be the head of their organization. How is that thoughtpolice?
It's one thing to campaign for the republican party, or donate money to them. That's not a problem. The problem is donating money to oppress a portion of the population based on their beliefs. That is an action, not a belief.
Well, for me the Republican party excludes and oppresses people. If MANY MANY more ways than banning gay marriage ever did. From starting all those wars under false pretexes that resulted to tens of thousands of casualties to everyday issues like health coverage.
Should we fire every CEO/CTO that's donated to it?
Or is it only an "action which excludes and/or opresses people" if you specifically disagree with it?
(Oh, and I don't have than much better an opinion on the Democrats either, just think the Reps are like a few percentage points worse -- plus it would get more people to agree with my statement).
Mozilla (and Eich) decided that this expression from the community was sufficient for Eich to step down as CEO. No one forced them to do it, much like no one forced them to make Eich CEO in the first place.
This is exactly how public dialogue is supposed to work. If you find that a particular executive at a company has taken actions you disagree with and this upsets you to the degree that you wish to stop using their products, you're free to do so. You're also free to talk to others and encourage them to do the same. The company is free to retain that executive or remove them depending on how they feel about the public outcry you've raised.
This is free speech and public dialogue. It's people deciding what products they want to use and talking about it. It's companies deciding what to do based on what's good for them and their objectives. Which one of those things do you object to?
A number, though, arguably violated California Penal Code Section 422 (I say "arguably" because whether they did depends on how seriously the threat recipient took them). Of course they may not be in California, but many other jurisdictions have similar laws.
I did not see any such comments on HN, although admittedly I did not follow the story closely on reddit, tumblr, or twitter.
There were certainly mails or blog comments (I'm not sure which, and the two are equivalent anyway when comments are moderated) with such threats in response to Lars Lohn's blog post (quoted near the bottom of <http://www.twobraids.com/2014/04/back-into-light.html>).
Of course I have no way to prove that to you. An earlier version of Lars' post (before he deleted it in his fit of pique) had an explicit edit mentioning the threats, but even Google's cache now only has <http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:eKzKHuO....
I'm told (more second-hand than in Lars' case, but by people I trust) that others received similar threats as well. Again, I have no way to convince you that this is true.
Surely you all are not imaginative enough if you think that the union of the set of behaviors one can form that are within their rights are all desirable behaviors.
I mean, strictly speaking the NSA was well within its legal rights to do what it did. But what was that quote by Jon Stewart, "I think you're misunderstanding the perceived problem here, Mr. President. No one is saying you broke any laws. We're just saying it's a little bit weird that you didn't have to."
> Surely you all are not imaginative enough if you think that the union of the set of behaviors one can form that are within their rights are all desirable behaviors.
I didn't say that all of behaviors seen were desirable, and upon rereading my comment, I have no idea how you got the impression that I was.
> I mean, strictly speaking the NSA was well within its legal rights to do what it did. But what was that quote by Jon Stewart, "I think you're misunderstanding the perceived problem here, Mr. President. No one is saying you broke any laws. We're just saying it's a little bit weird that you didn't have to."
Exactly which behaviours seen during that scandal do you think should have been illegal or were borderline illegal? I am getting the feeling that you saw something that I did not.
Bear in mind that I draw a strong distinction between "undesirable" and "should probably be illegal".
I wish you the best of luck with this argumentative approach -- I've been trying it for weeks, and no one on the other side appears to realize that legally or socially preventing what happened with Eich and the Mozilla community would be far, far more destructive to discourse, speech, etc than what happened here. The position itself (that what happened to Eich was somehow wrong, in a sense that can be well-defined) is internally inconsistent.
Does that sound incosistent?
> How about, nobody fucking makes another guy lose his job for what he votes or backs?
So, if it came out that an executive at some company had donated money to the KKK, they should be somehow forced to keep him on? This position isn't inconsistent, it's incoherent.
What if it came out that an executive at some company had donated money to the Republican Party?
But either way, no one is saying Mozilla should have been forced to retain Eich against their will. Rather, Mozilla's Board had decided he was the best guy for the job, despite his thoughtcrime, until enough people and companies started ganging up on them and threatening the viability of the project.
Expressing your speech is one thing, boycotting is one thing (indeed, think of all the people now boycotting Mozilla), but trying to burn down a project a là OkCupid is a whole 'nother bag.
Then... people would be free to boycott them? The company would be free to decide, like Mozilla did, whether it's worth keeping that executive on?
I agree that the OKCupid thing was a little distasteful, but that's mostly because it was so blatantly a ploy to get themselves some of the press surrounding the situation. I still wouldn't want to enact any policy that would ban them from doing so, however.
Not a single one. Now I'm also wondering what you're seeing.
> Bear in mind that I draw a strong distinction between "undesirable" and "should probably be illegal".
Great, because that's what the opposition to the witchhunt has consistently been: Not that the majority of the witchhunt activities have been technically illegal, but that the acts themselves are undesirable in a community of differing views.
The precedence set by what happened to Eich because of his bigoted views (again, legal or not) should be sending panic through the progressive communities. But instead it's the opposite, people claiming that hunting this witch is OK because look, he's actually a witch.
And it's usually the same kind of people who will trot out the quote about "First they came for the Jews, ..." who are hypocritically clawing down the door to catch this particular member of the untermensch.
Actions have consequences.
That's also what KKK said, when lynching someone.
If you think your argument through a bit further, I'm sure you'll see the distinction.
Well, zealot Christians (and organisations like the Inquisition) hated people "for what they did" (e.g extra-marital affairs, being an atheist, not going to church enough, magic spells, etc) not for what they were. I don't see how that's any improvement over hating them for what they are. Hate is hate.
I also have a three digit IQ and I don't believe Eich hates gay people. In fact he has worked closely with lots of them perfectly for ages (by their own admission). He might love marriage too much as a specific, and historically specified, tradition though, which is a different thing.
Sounds like we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.
You should research the labor concept of "constructive dismissal".
As it stands it wasn't just an outcry. You had companies like OKCupid hounding Firefox users who had nothing to do with Eich's donation. It was a pitchfork-and-torch expedition through and through, despite the fact that it all falls under the letter of the law regarding freedom of speech.
But as I tried to point out when this was all going on, freedom to speak does not imply that all speech is necessarily right.
What I don't understand is how the same people who will talk about "chilling effects" from government surveillance fail to understand the same exact principle applied elsewhere.
People deciding what products they want to use and talking about it. Companies deciding what to do based on what's good for them and their objectives.
Do you object to? (OKCupid's actions, of course, fall under both categories.) The consequences of any action you could take to prevent this type of behavior would be much more dire, chilling-effect-wise, than the occasional troubling instance such as this one.
As a long-time user of alternative browsers (e.g. Konqueror) I certainly object to companies deciding to take specific actions on their web sites for web browsers for reasons that are not clearly technical. If for no other reason than as a net neutrality issue.
Again, just because people and companies technically have the legal right to do something doesn't make it a good idea.
So I don't see anything better from the state bullying people to a private company doing the same. If anything it's worse, since the state has some democratic controls in place (at least in theory) and the majority elects their policies and representatives. A private company can be the rule and whimses of just one jerk.
Also, on the Republican side search for Dakota 38 and find out why some think very poorly of Abe's character.
It's also searchable here: www.fec.gov
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/mozilla-firefox...
Edit: his own post is at http://andreasgal.com/2014/04/24/technical-leadership-at-moz...
I'm very optimistic about Mozilla's future with him as CTO.
What does it matter if Andreas is technically competent when he has to manage activists rather than programmers?!
There are people working at Mozilla today, many of whom are pulling in a decent salary, who believe they are working for social justice charity rather than a technology non-profit.
Firefox is the golden goose but they might eventually bankrupt themselves by spending resources on non-core missions, like the GNOME foundation who had to whip out the begging bowl because they spent all their money on a women's outreach program rather than developing technology.
ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
You're an idiot, and I think you even know that you're completely misrepresenting the situation which I guess just makes you a liar.
Life is just so unfair, isn't it?
[1] http://blog.gerv.net/2014/04/your-ire-is-misdirected/
The same Gerv who posted an anti-gay-marriage petition to his blog [3] that was syndicated to the public Planet Mozilla forum, publicly calling on Mozilla community members to support the Coalition for Marriage [4], a homophobic hate group [5] that endorsed the legal codification of marriage in the UK as "the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others," [6] by distributing misleading gay marriage leaflets [7]?
The same Gerv whose bigoted post to Mozilla's public forum ignited a controversy about what kinds of content Mozilla tolerates on its Web properties, and triggered an internal discussion examining the nature and desirability of community standards for inclusion [8], which set the stage for the reaction to the revelation of Brendan Eich's $1000 donation in support of Proposition 8 [9], which eventually led to his ignoble resignation as CEO of Mozilla [10], and earned him the humiliating endorsement of support and call to arms from Eric Raymond, who threw down the gauntlet by proclaiming:
"Then I think it is now the duty of every friend of free speech and every enemy of political bullying to pledge not only to donate $1000 to the next anti-gay-marriage initiative to come along, but to say publicly that they have done so as a protest against bullying." [11]
Do you have any problem with giving bullies a taste of their own medicine, by exercising free speech, just like they enjoy?
And in what way were my posts abusive, or not factual, or not backed up by references and citation to prove my points?
I'd certainly characterize many of the responses from anti-gay-marriage bigots as abusive, Godwinesque trolling, inaccurate and completely unsupported by any facts or citations:
"Hey Don: What’s it like being so far up your own ass? John", "See, this is the idiotic propaganda which you people vomit all over the net. What frigging ‘rights’ are you talking about?", "The letter Mozilla should have written. http://t.co/jn2dNNltQY", "The irony of the current situation is the same people who cry because they are “discriminated minority” think and act like Nazis and they aggressively suppress any dissident.", "The gaystapo controls mozilla, it calls the shots. You are now working for this ugly and inhumane movement.", "The character assassination started with employees of Mozilla Foundation. Mozilla should have acted quickly and fired them. Will they still be employed?", "Are you a professional activist? Because, judging by the propagandist bull you sprout here, you sure sound like one. Eich was not ‘campaigning’ to remove any rights, he donated some money to a campaign to abolish special rights.", "Funny how gays demand tolerance from others, yet have no tolerance with those who disagree with their way of life. And pathetic Mozilla fell for it.", "We simply cannot have a civil society when the hyper sensitive and the perpetually aggrieved are allowed their way.", "I hope Mozilla goes bankrupt. I myself already convinced 150 people to stop using Mozilla on all their devices. ... With a bit of luck, I will have convinced at least 2000 people by the end of this year to stop using Mozilla. Maybe more.", "You on the other hand are way out of line and I think your pursuit of Brendan amounts to a hate crime." [12]
So, strafer32, if you think I was being abusive or unreasonable, especially compared to those other people I quoted, you must be nursing quite a persecution complex. Are you the same person who accused me of a hate crime? Since you created your account just two hours ago [13], and since you know my real name, would you please care to share your real name with us? O...
"Gert (and his supporters), do you also hate women, blacks and jews as much as you hate gays, and do you agree with Brendan Eich’s support of Patrick J. Buchanan and Ron Paul?"
In that entire comment you bring up unrelated issues involving US politicians as if trying to direct supporters of Mozilla and Brendan of being supporters of that view. People discussing with you then have to address points like that or be seen as supporting it. It's a classic trolling technique to do this.
I also find statements like the following abusive [2]:
"Apparently the people who warned me that you had such a thick skull that no outside information could get through and affect your thought processes were correct, and that makes me sad, because I had more faith in you."
In that comment you bring up the Mormon religion which I have no idea what that has to do with Mozilla or the Brendan Eich saga. Again, classic troll misdirection.
[1] http://blog.gerv.net/2014/04/your-ire-is-misdirected/#commen... [2] http://blog.gerv.net/2014/04/your-ire-is-misdirected/#commen...
Don't invest in Apple stock if you're against abortion?
Don't invest in Apple stock if you're against software patents?
Don't invest in Apple stock if you're a member of a socialist party?
If you think what Tim Cook did was right, then you don't understand what a free market is.
Finally, please don't smear people as "deniers" just because they want to have an honest scientific debate. Or do you honestly believe someone like Freeman Dyson is a simple-minded old fool?
http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2151
The mission to build a free and open web has nothing to do with social issues such as gay marriage.
There was a funny twitter account with his name that has now been removed which was a satire of his way of handling people. I'm not at mozilla corp. but "very nice" sounds like a stretch. I'm sure mozilla needs positive input right now - but psst :)
Sounds like a good thing to me.
I don't think you fucking trolls are making the point you think you are.
The @RealAndreasGal twitter account that was recently deleted was so amusing because the things that it said were exactly on point. Same with the 'ShitGalSays' Tumblr account which is still around: http://shitgalsays.com/
Andreas is strongly pro-whatever partners want in Firefox OS. Expect DRM and other forms of lockdown to start appearing under his rule. He has no interest in the Mozilla mission.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=strafer32
Given the age of your account and the contents of your comments I don't think you're one to throw stones.
Good luck, Andreas. Thanks, Brendan.