For those who are asking about his politics and getting downvoted, here's why. His politics almost certainly don't matter, UNLESS they are way outside those of the majority of his "constituents". For example, if he pro-religious-freedom, that's fine. If he's for a flat-tax, that's okay to most folks. If he's pro-choice, there are a few who'd get grumpy. If he's a climate-change denier, a lot of folks would question his thinking and/or ethics. If he was an enthusiastic neo-nazi, we'd start marching on Mozilla. For Mozilla's constituents (users, developers, employees), being anti-LGBT was well outside the realm of acceptable political beliefs.
In short, let's leave politics out of this kind of stuff UNLESS the candidate is demonstrably in one of the outer circles of "unacceptable viewpoints".
In short, let's leave politics out of this kind of stuff UNLESS the candidate is demonstrably in one of the outer circles of "unacceptable viewpoints".
It's deeply unsettling that you refer to beliefs and viewpoints instead of speech or actions, and moreover that a person's political views are only to be scrutinized if they're minority views.
I don't buy it. After all, if he's never done anything outside the realm of acceptable political beliefs, then nobody has anything to lose by going into his politics. And if he has, they surely have the right to know, especially the Mozilla employees. Clearly, that's not why those comments are being downvoted.
Either the HN crowd is finally tired of the political chicanery or they're afraid that fostering further discussion could reveal something about Chris Beard they don't like. This would cause yet another round of political nonsense that winds up in a second Mozilla CEO resigning. That would be extremely embarrassing not just for Mozilla, but Silicon Valley as a whole.
So it's hard to tell if the existing comments are trying to be snarky or if they just failed to explain their non-snarky intent, but they're getting voted down into an abyss and I would sincerely like to know what his political background is. So far my searches only yield people who are probably not the same Chris Beard. I do not mean this question to voice any particular opinion or as a commentary on the last CEO, but given the reason a new CEO was needed in the first place, I think it would be very interesting to see the political background of the person they chose as a replacement. Are they publicly pro-gay? Or have they been relatively neutral?
I would assume, though I could be proved wrong, that any of his political/social/religious/other positions that he or anyone else wanted to make public would be well known by now. (Remember that Brendan Eich's Proposition 8 donation was well known two years before he was promoted to CEO.)
My personal views, not necessarily shared by other Mozillians:
Brendan's support of Prop. 8 was part of both public record and common knowledge, including his public response to the 2012 controversy around it. With this knowledge, the MoCo board promoted him to CEO. Both this decision and his decision to step down were controversial because of his public political activity. Now, if a new CEO candidate had taken actions similar to Brendan's, that would reasonably affect their views and the board's (and Mozilla's staff, community, users, partners, etc.) about whether it would best serve the project for the board to name them CEO. Obviously, eyes on Mozilla in this regard. But it does not necessarily follow - as much as some people want it to - that every belief held by the new candidate must be suddenly made public and deemed relevant to their job.
I there's a version of the fundamental attribution error at work here [1]. People have decided that politicization of the CEO role is something intrinsic to Mozilla in particular, rather than something that would happen with any organization that put itself in a similar situation. (And conversely, not happen when the situation is not similar.) It truth, the same situation could repeat itself. But if it does, it's just as likely - probably more likely - to involve a different company and a different individual.
I believe the snarky comments are targeted at Mozilla's last short-lived CEO.
However, what does the political background of a CEO matter? Can he do the job? Can he lead them to success? Those are the questions that should be asked about any new big business executive... not rather or not he supported issue X at some point in the past.
He used to be a Linux kernel hacker. In 1998, he entered the business world by founding a consulting company around his kernel porting work. His company was acquired and he continued leading related work at the new owner (Linuxcare). From there he went on to various entrepreneurial and senior management jobs at technology companies including HP and Sun.
Chris left Sun to join Mozilla almost ten years ago (October 2004), just before the release of Firefox 1.0, making him one of the first dozen or so employees. He stayed at Mozilla for nine years in a variety of roles. As CIO he founded and led Mozilla Labs, and later was the CMO until leaving last year to work in venture capital and then start another company. He returned to Mozilla as interim CEO after Brendan Eich stepped down several months ago.
[Disclosure: I've been a Mozilla employee for the past 4.5 years.]
In the short term, making sure junk threads like this fall off the front page of the site (or to the bottoms of their threads) quickly is an important goal. That protects the site itself, by preventing it from collapsing in on itself due to pointless hostility. This is the problem the HN mods have been working on for the past year or so.
In the long term, figuring out how we can host relevant discussions about volatile partisan subjects is important, and I imagine something that will become a focus for moderation.
Not having completely solved the first problem, it's probably a bit wishful to hope that we can address the second one.
HN doesn't have to be all things to all topics. If we lose some stories in the service of repairing comity, I think that's a fine tradeoff in the short term.
It has nothing to do with voicing opinion. It's the manner in which it's being done. They are making short, snide commentary, trying to be clever. They add nothing to the conversation, and indeed, are not trying to have one. They are merely trying to "make a point" or cause a stir. They have an agenda, and a civil discussion is not what they are looking for. They know exactly what they are doing.
On top of that, if they go bad and edit their posts, complaining about down votes, which should then earn them down votes regardless.
There are civil ways to hold a discussion. Many of these comments are not an example of that.
A political donation of $1,000 that someone (presumably more than one someone, but who knows) in Mozilla did not like, and the CEO is ousted. http://lodes.net
It would be interesting to sue OkCupid for coercing Mozilla to violate anti-discrimination laws. Which brings up the fact that I don't really like them. I am thinking of ditching them, but allowing the EEOC or similar to order particular sets of companies to stop discrimination for a period of time if necessary.
No word on if he supports the GLBT community hook, line and sinker. That's the litmus.
EDIT: Wow. So if he does support the GLBT community, we don't need to know about it? My post that offensive to people? It's an important question to ask.
Edit 2: I just love tolerance ;)
Edit 3: I'm removing the /sarcasm tag because people are really confused by it for some reason.
Since noone is explaining it to you honestly, I'll tell you.
By implying that the LGBT interests are a campaign to be bought, or convinced by, or tricked into, you are showing a complete lack of understanding of the true reasons why people in the tech industry (who tend to be socially progressive) find the idea of fighting against gay marriage (which is what Brendan Eich did) completely appalling. You are also revealing yourself as an anti-progressive dinosaur who is on the wrong side of history when it comes to LGBT human rights.
[+] [-] webwright|11 years ago|reply
In short, let's leave politics out of this kind of stuff UNLESS the candidate is demonstrably in one of the outer circles of "unacceptable viewpoints".
[+] [-] GHFigs|11 years ago|reply
It's deeply unsettling that you refer to beliefs and viewpoints instead of speech or actions, and moreover that a person's political views are only to be scrutinized if they're minority views.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime
[+] [-] MadMoogle|11 years ago|reply
Either the HN crowd is finally tired of the political chicanery or they're afraid that fostering further discussion could reveal something about Chris Beard they don't like. This would cause yet another round of political nonsense that winds up in a second Mozilla CEO resigning. That would be extremely embarrassing not just for Mozilla, but Silicon Valley as a whole.
[+] [-] bachmeier|11 years ago|reply
Unless you've got an objective outside referee to decide what is acceptable, your proposal is meaningless in practice.
[+] [-] ScottBurson|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TallGuyShort|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mbrubeck|11 years ago|reply
I would assume, though I could be proved wrong, that any of his political/social/religious/other positions that he or anyone else wanted to make public would be well known by now. (Remember that Brendan Eich's Proposition 8 donation was well known two years before he was promoted to CEO.)
My personal views, not necessarily shared by other Mozillians:
Brendan's support of Prop. 8 was part of both public record and common knowledge, including his public response to the 2012 controversy around it. With this knowledge, the MoCo board promoted him to CEO. Both this decision and his decision to step down were controversial because of his public political activity. Now, if a new CEO candidate had taken actions similar to Brendan's, that would reasonably affect their views and the board's (and Mozilla's staff, community, users, partners, etc.) about whether it would best serve the project for the board to name them CEO. Obviously, eyes on Mozilla in this regard. But it does not necessarily follow - as much as some people want it to - that every belief held by the new candidate must be suddenly made public and deemed relevant to their job.
I there's a version of the fundamental attribution error at work here [1]. People have decided that politicization of the CEO role is something intrinsic to Mozilla in particular, rather than something that would happen with any organization that put itself in a similar situation. (And conversely, not happen when the situation is not similar.) It truth, the same situation could repeat itself. But if it does, it's just as likely - probably more likely - to involve a different company and a different individual.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_Attribution_Error
[+] [-] Alupis|11 years ago|reply
However, what does the political background of a CEO matter? Can he do the job? Can he lead them to success? Those are the questions that should be asked about any new big business executive... not rather or not he supported issue X at some point in the past.
[+] [-] yarrel|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] e15ctr0n|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mbrubeck|11 years ago|reply
Chris left Sun to join Mozilla almost ten years ago (October 2004), just before the release of Firefox 1.0, making him one of the first dozen or so employees. He stayed at Mozilla for nine years in a variety of roles. As CIO he founded and led Mozilla Labs, and later was the CMO until leaving last year to work in venture capital and then start another company. He returned to Mozilla as interim CEO after Brendan Eich stepped down several months ago.
[Disclosure: I've been a Mozilla employee for the past 4.5 years.]
[+] [-] JimmaDaRustla|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bgun|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tptacek|11 years ago|reply
In the short term, making sure junk threads like this fall off the front page of the site (or to the bottoms of their threads) quickly is an important goal. That protects the site itself, by preventing it from collapsing in on itself due to pointless hostility. This is the problem the HN mods have been working on for the past year or so.
In the long term, figuring out how we can host relevant discussions about volatile partisan subjects is important, and I imagine something that will become a focus for moderation.
Not having completely solved the first problem, it's probably a bit wishful to hope that we can address the second one.
HN doesn't have to be all things to all topics. If we lose some stories in the service of repairing comity, I think that's a fine tradeoff in the short term.
[+] [-] nawitus|11 years ago|reply
EDIT: Why the downvotes?
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jasonlotito|11 years ago|reply
You should remove that. Otherwise, you should receive down votes.
Edit: For clarity's sake, you should remove the complaint about downvotes.
[+] [-] hamax|11 years ago|reply
Some people seem to be really mad about some other people voicing their opinion.
[+] [-] jasonlotito|11 years ago|reply
On top of that, if they go bad and edit their posts, complaining about down votes, which should then earn them down votes regardless.
There are civil ways to hold a discussion. Many of these comments are not an example of that.
[+] [-] qwerta|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dblohm7|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lodes|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yuhong|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thrillgore|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] wuxiekeji|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rjohnk|11 years ago|reply
EDIT: Wow. So if he does support the GLBT community, we don't need to know about it? My post that offensive to people? It's an important question to ask.
Edit 2: I just love tolerance ;)
Edit 3: I'm removing the /sarcasm tag because people are really confused by it for some reason.
[+] [-] bellerocky|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] npinguy|11 years ago|reply
By implying that the LGBT interests are a campaign to be bought, or convinced by, or tricked into, you are showing a complete lack of understanding of the true reasons why people in the tech industry (who tend to be socially progressive) find the idea of fighting against gay marriage (which is what Brendan Eich did) completely appalling. You are also revealing yourself as an anti-progressive dinosaur who is on the wrong side of history when it comes to LGBT human rights.
[+] [-] tosseraccount|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryanthejuggler|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tosseraccount|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tosseraccount|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeremyt|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daviis01|11 years ago|reply