Hi, David. I am frankly surprised that you publicly state that you wanted Eich to remain. Up until today (sorry for the unavoidable delay in replying), Mozilla to me seemed homogeneously lacking much of internal opposition to what happened - or very weak opposition at best. That lack implies consent.
So here is my suggestion to you: organize loud and unambiguous dissent to what happened, culminating in a well phrased public statement. Merely using words like "regret" and "move on" (and "outsiders") would accomplish nothing, and probably would even be counterproductive, as if being part of a smokescreen. But using terms like "grave injustice" in a statement would be impressive. However, I think you will find that employees would be skittish to sign such a statement because of fear of being blacklisted by the industry. "You'll never work in this town again" comes to mind. Even at Mozilla, while everyone is supposedly equal, gays are obviously more equal (as in the affirmative action: Ascend Project) Your sentence "This attack, and Brendan's resignation, made us appear as an organization that could be bullied" is exactly correct - except replace "could be" with "was and can again be". That brings up an important point: there are claims that Eich received violent threats to himself and his family. Where are the police reports? I would guess there aren't any. Why not? I don't doubt that the claims are true. So the CEO of a very famous corporation is no longer in his position, in large part because of violent threats and nothing is done about that? Mozilla itself should demand that the criminals be identified and prosecuted, even if Eich does not. Also, where is the self-organized massive effort by internet companies in general, or by individuals with forensic skills from across the net. to root out the criminals? Instead, there is silence - which is, of course, completely expected given the source of the threats. Contrast this: CEO of internet company forced out by campaign which included threats from radical gays, everyone says "let's move on" with this CEO of internet company forced out by campaign which included threats from white supremacists, everyone says "let's move on" Yep, some are "more equal", to be sure. 10.04.2014, 17:39, "David Rajchenbach-Teller" <[email protected]>: > Big Fred, > > I am sorry if you feel that my message was "condescendingly mocking", as > you put it. Since you seem to be reading my messages, you probably > realized that my intention was to try and understand better Tony's > reasoning. Not everybody who comes to voice their concern here have the > same understanding of the situation or the same feeling. > > Now, I believe that we do not deserve your description of « the boorish > clod that wants to just dissemble or stomp over any opposition in the > style of Gates. » > > Brendan Eich left Mozilla. Nobody is going to pretend that he did this > because he wanted to. However, it is my belief that Brendan left because > he believed at the time that this was the best course of action for both > him and Mozilla. > > This is one of several things that happened at Mozilla while both > Mozilla as an organization and Brendan as an individual were being > harassed as part of a media onslaught organized by OKCupid. Many of us > believe that Mozilla took several bad decisions during this period. Many > of us would have preferred if Brendan had stayed, either as CEO or as > CTO (which, in fact if not in name, was his previous position). > > I am not going to spend time defending Mitchell's blog post – since it > can be interpreted in two very different manners, one of them > unacceptable, it clearly needs to be amended. I believe that the only > reason why it hasn't been amended yet is that we want to make sure that > we don't make things even worse, but this leaves us with a text that > erodes our credibility. > > Do you someone at Mozilla to say that he is very disappointed about what > happened? Here: I am *very* disappointed about what happened. > > However, I also believe that Mozilla is not the guilty party. We made > mistakes, for sure, but Mozilla is one the victims here, alongside with > Brendan. We have been the victim of an organized online attack and this > attack leaves us without a CEO, without a CTO, without one of our > co-founders. This attack, and Brendan's resignation, made us appear as > an organization that could be bullied. > > The question is: what should we do now? How do we get back up? > > If you have ideas, this is the right place to discuss them. > > Best regards, > David > > On 10/04/14 04:34, Big Fred wrote: > >> Today I contacted three people that I had in the past convinced to switch >> from IE or Chrome to FF. I persuaded them to uninstall FF because of your >> culture of politically correct bigotry. After reading this list today, I >> think I'll keep doing that as a hobby. Why? Because after the politically >> correct witch hunt that resulted in Eich being out and radical gays being >> appeased, all I see here are what come across as smug attempts to deflect >> blame and just weather the storm. FF is the new IE, the boorish clod that >> wants to just dissemble or stomp over any opposition in the style of Gates. >> >> Yes, I've seen the aggravatingly repetitive "Eich wasn't forced out, he >> quit" replies which only come across as being deliberately misleading. The >> fact will always remain that he is gone because radical gays wanted him gone >> over his personal beliefs. >> >> There is also the disingenuous refusal to acknowledge that we live in a era >> of politically correct witch hunts, which is why people are finally fed up. >> This episode did not occur in a vacuum. Mozilla is Cracker Barrel part 2. >> >> There are the ever present double-standards of political correctness, such >> as the calls in the moderation thread that any opposition to gay marriage >> should be censored from this list. But in another thread, any employees who >> called for Eich's purging should not suffer any negative consequences, >> because that is presumably the good kind of intolerance on their part. >> >> Then we have the claims that Mozilla statements didn't mean what they said. >> The chairwomans' statement that everyone reasonably interprets as "we're so >> eagerly sorry that we didn't purge the intolerant bigot sooner" didn't >> really mean that after all. Sure, sure... Since the tidal wave of negative >> backlash, she makes no statement wanting to communicate on that, much less >> apologize on that part of the 'community', does she? That makes her original >> meaning doubly clear. >> >> Some particular examples: >> >> Here's a statement that merges two very wrong approaches: "On the one hand, >> someone from Engagement should talk to the petitioners and explain that we >> did not fire Brendan or coerce him to resign. On the other hand, if it's not >> really affecting usage, is it worth it? -Sheeri Cabral" So much for being >> principled, huh? It's just a matter of what Mozilla can get away with after >> all. >> >> Or this: >> "If I understand correctly what you write, you are changing browser >> because 4 employees of Mozilla have asked for the resignation of >> Brendan? Or am I misunderstanding? >> >> Best regards, >> David " >> >> which comes across as condescendingly mocking. >> >> Then there are the inevitable "let's move on" exhortations because Mozilla >> is the supposed great repository of fairness and equality and tolerance of >> diverse speech. That's entirely laughable, considering that the CEO was just >> purged to appease radical gays. (Sure, sure... he "volunteered to be >> purged!") >> >> But wait, Eich was also encouraged to accept a humiliating demotion, so >> that makes everything all right. Then there's the outright falsehood that >> he's still an active part of Mozilla. >> >> Through it all, while many, many thousands (and growing) are infuriated >> over what happened, not one person from Mozilla is. Not from the top to the >> bottom, none that have overtly said so anyway. Quite a disconnect. >> >> So keep fiddlling, Mozilla. People are coming to believe that you are even >> less trustworthy than the deceptive spies of megacorporation google. You are >> making enemies and enemies have a way of multiplying. That's the same maxim >> that Micro$oft arrogantly ignored all those years ago. >> _______________________________________________ >> governance mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance > > -- > David Rajchenbach-Teller, PhD > Performance Team, Mozilla _______________________________________________ governance mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
