Mozilla Voices

I invited people to email me; here’s what they have been saying.

I fear that Mozilla showed a weakness, when we replied to that initial complaint. We showed people we care about what they had to say about Brendan, and about politics. I think we shouldn’t. …

Although technically we are still good, I fear that our community is strained right now. We need to forget all politics, and focus on the mission. Only the mission. We shouldn’t care about other things. Hopefully we will pull through…


Recent events have made me very angry, and the more I think about it, the angrier I get. …

Brendan understood that for Mozilla to be successful in its mission, participants needed to check their prejudices at the door and work together to build this great thing. And he himself compartmentalized his prejudices away from his work life.

He awarded others this tolerance, but in the end was not awarded it himself by others.


While I am myself a strong supporter of equal marriage rights, I am shocked by what was done to Brendan. It was truly vindictive and intolerant, completely unbecoming of a movement that claims to fight for tolerance.


I am not sure what you will do with the feedback you get, but if you can, in the middle of the rest, express that there exists a point of view that the leadership does not listen well enough and needs to open up lines of communication to the leadership from employees, the community and even non-community users, that idea would be worth communicating.


I feel that Brendan was unfairly persecuted for expressing his views even though it seems evident he never allowed any personal views to affect his ability to function.

People have been justifying bashing his position on the basis that equality is normally and editorially required for any position of power. Unfortunately these people are either bordering on misinformed or purely idiotic.


I am surprised at how mean people can be toward Brendan. It is a big loss for Mozilla.

I have been using Firefox since it was called Phoenix. I have installed it on many PCs. I learned Javascript on Firefox. I was loyal to Firefox during the difficult years when it had memory and speed issues. I was generally impressed with Mozilla’s stance on the Open Web. Now, I am not so impressed with Mozilla.


Somebody has been forced to resign from Mozilla because of his beliefs/ideas/opinions. That is exactly the opposite of what Mozilla states to be its “mission” …


I find it horrific that this backlash is a repeat of what you experienced two years ago. And it’s deeply affected me in my impression of how welcomed Christians are at Mozilla.


If you want your voice heard, or just want to talk in confidence (say if so), please email me.

28 thoughts on “Mozilla Voices

  1. FYI — the formatting of this post doesn’t syndicate well (see PMO). You might consider adding brief “here’s what people are saying” kind of intro, otherwise it looks like a weirdly rambling post written by you.

  2. I’m an outsider, but from my perspective, his opinions were almost irrelevant. What I objected to were his actions. He took concrete actions to make sure that the force of government was used against LGBT people. He paid to help enshrine inequality in the law. Believe whatever you want, but please don’t use the State to separate and demean us.

  3. I am disgusted by Mozilla’s response to this situation. They say they believe in equality, but are hypocrits since they really bend over backwards to appease the lgbt thugs and deny anyone with traditional beliefs tights! Since when have the homosexual activists ever campaigned for equality? It’s alway about denying the rights of anyone who has a belief they don’t like. They have no interest in equality, only in forcing their beliefs on eveyone else!

    I used to support my homosexual friends and help them campaign for equal rights. These days even my homosexual friends are ashamed to be associated with the fight for homosexual rights and the discrimination against anyone who doesn’t bow down before the homo-nazis. And they are homo-nazis, using the same tactics the original nazis thugs used to attack anyone dares have their own views!

  4. He did nothing wrong because he respected Mozilla internal guidelines and State laws. You can disagree and object his actions out of his workplace, you can take actions that oppose his actions on the same field. What you cannot do is to punish him or ask somebody else to punish him, removing him from his job only because he did what any other citizen is entitled to do.

    I am not American and from here your reasoning sounds both rather familiar and scaring.

  5. My reasoning? What reasoning? All I did was say that his paying to make discrimination the law of the land bothered me. Guess I’m not allowed to think that. Sorry.

  6. Yes, that’s something I’ve been commenting on a lot in the past few weeks – the people who have joined this persecution of Brendan have done untold damage to the LGBT cause. So much effort in positioning that cause as something to be accepted without fuss – and then something like this comes up, with all the rabid nutjobs coming out of the woodwork.

  7. All I’ve heard so far on Mozilla based blogs is that Brendan left of his own free will. What I’ve not really heard is did anyone stop him or actually refuse his request to resign and stand by him?

    Also what really irks me is what damn company culture allows it’s employees to bully it’s CEO, via social media, out of a job?

    If that’s the open and all inclusive culture Mozilla uses then they can stick it!

  8. I don’t understand how donating is any more concrete action than voting. What if he didn’t donate but still voted for Prop 8? (I’m assuming he did because he donated but who knows). And somehow, that voting record was leaked to the public. Would this still have happened?

  9. Discrimination is inherently part of the law, BethanyAnne. We welcome it in everyday life.

    While I don’t necessarily share Brendan’s views on marriage*, I do support his right to legally promote a traditional view over-against a redefined view.

    I would imagine that if he had donated to an organisation who was actively seeking to defend the traditional view marriage that specifically opposed a woman’s legal ability to marry inanimate objects (do a search for “woman marries wall” if you don’t know what I mean) then he would still be in a job. Now it seems clear to me that if you step out of line You Will Get Hurt. Sadly, I think this may well be a sign of things to some.

    I’ve not been very aware of Mozilla as an entity apart from their products, certainly not with respect to any overt political or social stances. So it’s sad that they have now come to my attention over this. I use FF in a professional basis but I’m now wondering should I use it outside work.

    Finally, could somebody explain the last quote in gerv’s original post? What was this backlash?

    (*I would have to qualify this statement but here is not the place.)

  10. Is there any way to get Brendan back? Just get him back, wait out the LGBT jerks that started this, and eventually most people will forget. I just cannot condone his departure with the subsequent press release from Mitchell. He left because he thought it was for the good of Mozilla, but it’s just as bad if not worse. Mozilla will have to try and wait it out either way, so why not wait it out with him at the helm, he deserves it.

  11. Mozilla didn’t “bend over backwards” here. Brendan didn’t resign right away; almost everyone at Mozilla supported him; the entire organization withstood severe pressure for several days before it became too much and Brendan felt he had to resign.

  12. Keep in mind that it was only a handful of employees who called for him to step down. The vast majority supported him. But we’re not going to tear Mozilla apart by resigning en masse in sympathy; I don’t think that’s what he wants.

    The last part of your message answers itself. What kind of culture allows people to openly call for their CEO to step down? Mozilla’s open, freedom-of-expression culture, that’s what. Of course I’m still angry that those people chose to do what they did.

  13. The “backlash” in the last quote in my original post refers to the various campaigns to have Brendan be fired/step down. I’m sure a little searching will turn them up :-)

  14. Ok, now Mozilla needs to rebuild a minimum of credibility so it wasn’t Mozilla’s fault, everybody did their best for Eich.

    Unfortunately we have all read the posts from Mozilla and mozillians during these days and we KNOW what they mean with “support”, something along the line of “Mozilla supports the LGBT community” or “I strongly support the LGBT community”, then after some lines of bla bla, “Eich is wrong but since he is useful for Mozilla maybe it would not be a good idea to kick him out”. And this while there was a campaign against Eich from oustide Mozilla, which in other situations should have triggered a “cohesive reaction” instead of “mmm, I don’t know, maybe he is not a bad guy after all”.

    But again, at the end of this story the “two sides” ARE NOT on the same level. Mozilla is still a “progressive organization” filled with “progressive people” who think and act in one direction. No gay was harmed while Eich was forced to quit his job.

  15. “I find it horrific that this backlash is a repeat of what you experienced two years ago”

    I gathered that the “you” in this comment was referring to yourself, grev. But perhaps I misunderstand.

  16. You people disgust me the way you have treated Brendan Eich. He under your own equal opportunities statement should be free to express his views, but I guess “diversity and inclusiveness and welcome contributions from everyone regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender-identity, language, race, sexual orientation, geographical location and religious views. Mozilla supports equality for all.” Only applies if he doesn’t use his freedom of speech!
    You are quoted “We believe in freedom of speech”… but if you use that freedom to say something we don’t believe in, you are out. “We want diversity and inclusiveness and equality for all”… except for those who do not believe what we believe.”

  17. Bob: if you actually read my previous posts, and the voices quoted above, you will find that we are all sad Brendan has gone.

  18. I’m afraid I don’t agree. He asserts that it was Brendan’s fault, and claims “there’s no villain to be found” when he also notes “the lynch mob mentality of the politically correct, social collective”. He also suggests Mozilla helped to create this. I think that’s only true in the sense that car makers helped to create bank robberies.

  19. Unfortunately, Brendan did indeed have a hand in his own demise.

    At any profit-oriented company I’ve been at, an employee who was quoted in public saying “I’m an employee at company X and I think the CEO of my company (or a subsidiary) should be fired” would be instantly fired. How many Mozilla (or Foundtaion) employees were fired for doing exactly that?

    The answer is of course zero. This sort of behavior is perfectly acceptable at Mozilla. The policies say so.

    Didn’t Brendan have something to do with those policies?

  20. Darn, no edit.

    I meant the last sentence to read:

    Didn’t Brendan have something to do with writing those policies?

  21. Gerv, I read through most of that link and I admire your ability to stay true to your beliefs and also stay calm in the face of opposition.

    I think that difficult times are coming.

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