On Tuesday, November 25, 2014 12:01:22 PM UTC-6, Leo McArdle wrote: > I've no doubt that this would be a different discussion if Mozilla was > being funded by the Russian or Chinese (or any other country's) > government. I've no doubt that many of the points you make would be > relevant, and that I would resoundingly agree with them. > > But almost everything you've said rests on this notion that Yandex and > Baidu are de facto arms of the Russian and Chinese governments > respectively. What is your reasoning for this, other than abiding by the > laws of those respective countries?
You're right, and I appreciate your focusing on the core of the argument. I think it is common knowledge that the Chinese government exercises strict control over its portion of the Internet, and over companies like Baidu. But better than taking my word for it would be to consider what people in those areas have said, like the Taiwanese user who posted in this thread, and the Ukrainians who posted on Bugzilla. If their concerns are not valid, then perhaps mine are not either. Or perhaps mine would be reduced to a matter of principle, which clearly entails a variety of responses. The questions would then include ones like: How will users in these locales interpret Mozilla's being funded by these entities? How will Mozilla's being funded by them reflect on its stated mission and values? Will Mozilla become dependent on their funding, and if so, could that present a future risk? What if these entities were to later attempt to leverage their funding to change Mozilla's behavior, to change Firefox? It has already been speculated in the past that Google's funding of Mozilla has caused Mozilla to not take certain stands which could have been contrary to Google's interests; and whether true or not, appearances do matter to some extent. And perhaps most importantly, will being funded by them and collaborating with them actually result in more liberty for people in these places? Will it inspire people to resist oppression, or to tolerate it? _______________________________________________ governance mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
