Mozilla Staff Urge Their CEO To Step Down Because He's Anti-Gay Marriage
Some employees at Mozilla, the non-profit organization behind the Firefox browser, are calling on new CEO <span>Brendan Eich to resign. </span>
<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Mozilla workers are upset with Eich because he supported Proposition 8 and donated to the politicians who backed it.</span>
Prop 8 was a Californian ballot-proposition banning same-sex marriage. It was officially rejected in February 2012.
But some employees at Mozilla, such as design researcher Emily Goligoski, feel that Eich's decision to back Prop 8 goes against Mozilla's core values as a company. Goligoski posted the following on Twitter.
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To me, @Mozilla is about openness & expression of freedom. I hope to see us have leadership that represents those values in their actions.
- emgollie (@emgollie) March 27, 2014</blockquote>
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Kat Braybrooke, curator and co-design lead at Mozilla, had the following to say:
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Like many @Mozilla staff, I'm taking a stand. I do not support the Board's appointment of @BrendanEich as CEO. #Prop8 http://t.co/msKVNjuhgR
- Kat Braybrooke (@codekat) March 27, 2014</blockquote>
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Mozilla's Open Badges project lead Chris McAvoy sparked the Twitter conversation with the following tweet, which was initially spotted by Ars Technica.<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"> </span>
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I love @mozilla but I'm disappointed this week. @mozilla stands for openness and empowerment, but is acting in the opposite way.
- Chris McAvoy (@chmcavoy) March 27, 2014</blockquote>
It's a bit surprising that Mozilla employees are speaking up about Eich now. He cofounded Mozilla in 1998, and prior to being CEO, he served as the company's chief technology officer. <span style="line-height: 1.5em;">He also widely respected for inventing the JavaScript Web scripting language in 1995.</span>
<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Eich hasn't hid from the fact that he supported anti-gay marriage legislation. </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Following his appointment, Eich said the following regarding the LGBT community at Mozilla on his personal blog:</span>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">At the same time, I know there are concerns about my commitment to fostering equality and welcome for LGBT individuals at Mozilla. I hope to lay those concerns to rest, first by making a set of commitments to you. More important, I want to lay them to rest by actions and results ... I know some will be skeptical about this, and that words alone will not change anything. I can only ask for your support to have the time to "show, not tell"; and in the meantime express my sorrow at having caused pain.
Mozilla has not responded to comment on the matter, but published a blog post on the importance of diversity within the company earlier this week.
We spoke with a Mozilla employee who seemed surprised by the uproar. This employee said there's been no internal craziness - "<span>It's being made out worse than it really is" - </span>and our source expects it to blow over.
"H<span>e's addressed it at all company meetings," o</span>ur source says. "He's not changing his position. But <span>I haven't seen it get in the way of anyone advancing at Mozilla."</span>
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