Robert, I'm not sure we disagree. When I said, "Mozilla could," I meant that while Mozilla could do that, it would be better to act based on principles. To pander to a certain demographic or whichever one is currently offended will harm Mozilla in the long run, regardless of which one is pandered to. As you said, Mozilla's long-term goals are important; what Mozilla should avoid offending is its mission.
The problem, of course, is that Mozilla was dragged into this political quagmire; the fight was brought to Mozilla's door. It seems like Mozilla tried to ignore it, to politely explain that it wasn't interested and just go about its business. But in doing so, it effectively allowed its HQ to be raided and pillaged; trying to be neutral was perceived as a sign of weakness, and the fight was pressed even harder. What Mozilla probably needed to do was, perhaps counterintuitively, be vehemently neutral: to vigorously repel the invaders to its borders, asserting its neutrality while defending its sovereignty. It may be too late to win this battle, but Mozilla needs to resolve to never allow this to happen again. Without a strong defense, remaining truly neutral becomes impossible. And part of building that defense is recognizing and admitting its recent failures, and publicly committing to standing up in the future for its neutrality and its employees' right to their private lives. Then, secure in that promise, the mission can continue, a mission we can all get behind. On Thursday, April 10, 2014 3:54:43 PM UTC-5, Robert Kaiser wrote: > Adam Porter schrieb: > > > Right now, Mozilla could try to decide who it is willing to offend: those > > that demanded Eich's resignation, or those who are appalled at his > > resignation--more specifically, those who blame Mozilla for it. Whatever > > Mozilla does, some people will be offended. If Mozilla does nothing, some > > people will be offended. > > > > As we have no political agenda in those regards, at least as a > > community, we do not want to offend any of those groups broadly, and > > neither support any of them broadly. > > What we want instead is to fight for making privacy and users > > controlling their online lives themselves one of the cornerstones of the > > Internet, creating real freedom and opportunity of choice for people > > using the World Wide Web. > > That agenda will also offend some people, sure, but then they are > > offended by our actual values and our mission, and not by a different > > political topic that is not our fight as a community and organization to > > fight (even though we have people with opinions on both sides of it > > within our community). > > > > Please let use get back to our actual agenda of making freedom and core > > value of the Internet and the Open Web a reality for as many people on > > this world as possible. > > > > And then we are back to what you said: > > > > > This is what Mozilla must do if it is to accomplish its long-term goals, > > which are in the interest of all people. It won't be easy. Enemies will > > be made. But as Winston Churchill once said, "You have enemies? Good. That > > means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life." > > > > KaiRo _______________________________________________ governance mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
