As someone who's not losing any sleep over Eich's departure, I think this Slate article is interesting, especially in light of your decision to use the Chrome browser (which is also my browser of choice):

The first thing you’ll notice, if you search for Eich, is that he’s the only Mozilla employee who gave to the campaign for Prop 8. His $1,000 was more than canceled out by three Mozilla employees who donated to the other side.

The next thing you’ll notice is that other companies, including other tech firms, substantially outscored Mozilla in pro-Prop 8 contributions attributed to their employees. That includes Adobe, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, and Yahoo, as well as Disney, DreamWorks, Gap, and Warner Bros.

(Emphasis to Google added by me.)

So, at the risk of being a hypocrite for using Chrome myself, I suggest that if your reason for switching browsers was Eich's contributions, you at least be aware (maybe you already are) of these other facts. That said, I do believe there's a difference between rank-and-file employees donating to objectionable campaigns and choosing a CEO (after the fact) who has donated to said objectionable campaign.

Instead of pressuring him to leave, or making it hard for him to stay, it might have been better to have pressured him to live up to this:

"I know there are concerns about my commitment to fostering equality and welcome for LGBT individuals at Mozilla," Eich wrote. While his post didn't directly mention his $1,000 financial donation to Prop 8, nor his $2,100 in contributions to Prop 8 supporter and CA Congressman Thomas McClintock between 2008 and 2010, Eich did deliver a list of specific and varied plans to "work with LGBT communities and allies," both in reiterating the company's diverse healthcare options and in insisting that he participate in "community-building exercises" down the road. In addition, Eich took the opportunity to announce Project Ascend, a Mozilla initiative meant to expand access to open-source projects to "those who lack privilege."

Mozilla started not working on my new computer in 2011, so I quit.

My son was here when I purchased this Toshiba, and he set it on Chrome.

Not that I have not tried to get Mozilla working again. It just does not work.

So I do not care who is CEO.

What if I discovered that the CEO at Chrome was found guilty of running some enterprise involving rooster fighting?

This ad attack on Rush is very very good.

Maher is disgusted with this attack.

But how far do we take this?

Where do we draw the line?

I would not ever purchase a Papa's Pizza.

I hate that prick, the guy who slandered my President.

Jon Voight is a prick and he slandered my President but I normally watch some of his films for other reasons. Those movies involve stars and directors that I like.

But his daughter's films have no appeal to me. And as far as I am concerned this woman has mental issues (who doesn't) but appears to be a liberal. I just do not like her films.

My assessment from afar is that Bruce Willis is a prick, I still watch some of his films.

John Wayne sucks, even when he is dead. He was a racist, right wing extremist and except for Stage Coach, forget it.

Clint Eastwood is kinda a right wing prick; most of his movies are terrific.

I like Lipton's Green Tea. Hell, Lipton Inc might just throw in food coloring and pretend leaves. I don't know but I am not sure that if I discovered that the CEO of Lipton Inc had three wives that that fact would have anything to do with me?

Life is just so complicated, it is not like everyone can do it!

These is absolutely no parallel between a CEO of a largely volunteer organization of 40,000 many of whom don't want him to head their organization, and a powerless employee in Alabama being fired for a bumper sticker (in 2004) on her private vehicle. The guy has worked for Mozilla for years and may continue to be employed there in a lesser capacity.

The CEO is a leader of a community of largely unpaid contributors, the woman in Alabama is just more Decider/capitalist screw the worker road kill, typical of the vote suppressing 'our way or the highway' anti-worker, anti-democratic GOP.

To depart from the narcissistic chatter here, notes from the real world of employment in America,  Driftglass:

Capitalism 101

Lesson #1. In the real world, most working people have a thing called a "boss". How can you tell who's the boss?  Easy.  The boss is the person who can hire and fire you.

Lesson #2:  When and under what circumstances can your boss fire you?

Again, this is very easy. Thank's to the Conservative Long War on Labor, today almost every worker in almost every job in almost every state is an "at-will" employee who may be canned by the boss for almost any reason, or no reason at all:

Wiki: An employer may terminate its employees at will, for any or no reason ... the employer may act peremptorily, arbitrarily, or inconsistently, without providing specific protections such as prior warning, fair procedures, objective evaluation, or preferential reassignment ... The mere existence of an employment relationship affords no expectation, protectable by law, that employment will continue, or will end only on certain conditions, unless the parties have actually adopted such terms.[6]

Yes, there are exceptions such as race, religion, sex, handicap status and so forth, but the burden of affirmatively proving that you were fired because you're a member of one of those protected categories falls to the fired employee, and short of discovering a cache of documents in which your boss explicitly outlines his plans to terminate you because you're a woman or gay or over 40, you're usually shit outta luck.


I have seen people sacked for being too unattractive for the new boss's tastes.  For having too must melanin.  For being dangerously competent.  For being too honest.  Too old.  Because the boss's drinking buddy or mistress doesn't like you.  For having the wrong last name.  I have seen people sacked for being too unattractive for the new boss's tastes.....

My only comment Michael is that when you switched browsers you participated in concerted action -- it wasn't just you, and so I think it's misleading to write that all you did was switch to Chrome.  You did more -- you exercised your right to join others and participate in a community response. And that's cool, but it is what it is, and I'm not sure how that jives with your assertion that the guy wasn't driven out.  Surely he was driven out by pressure from folks like you.

And that's as American as apple pie, as are the usual responses from the detractors of free expression -- in my world the folks who never met a strike they didn't abhor, and here the folks in the corporate world of a groovy hi-tech Silicon Valley masters of the universe context, where community pressure invokes pictures of peasants with pitchforks, which I guess to them is so like 20th century.  

The issue imbedded in MM's post goes beyond whether MM participated in an action or helped to force someone out by switching browsers.

The issue applies to all boycotts and mass actions against people, organizations, or countries whose views and actions "we"--which always means "some people"--don't like.

I don't know whether it's a "free speech" or "tolerance" issue or what, exactly.

• Some folks want to boycott Israel or a part of Israel because they "disagree" with what those people think and are doing.

• Some of us boycotted iceberg lettuce and grapes because the growers were doing things of which we disapproved.

• Others boycotted Chik-Fil-A because they didn't want to support the views (and the financial support provided by) its owner.

Should the boycottees be supported because, after all, they have a right to their views? Are the boycotters intolerant because they are fighting for the values they hold dear?

It's hard to sort out these competing claims when they're discussed on the "horizontal plane" without recourse to deeper, more universal principles. Which, in turn, alas, may not be universally shared--so there's no guarantee of a universally accepted solution.

I'll just add this: One thing that hasn't been discussed above (that I see) is the Eich wasn't simply holding or expressing his views. He was taking political action whose purpose was to prevent a certain class of people from their exercising a basic "right."

It wasn't on-the-barricades political action, but it was providing fuel to a movement whose purpose was to pass, or a repeal, a law (can't remember now) that would restrict the lives of lots of people.

In that sense--maybe--simply switching to a different browser was too mild, unless  accompanied by a letter to Mozilla letting them know what you were doing and why. I don't know if leaving Mozilla is the right thing to do here, but if it is the right thing to do, you should send them a letter. Of course, now Eich has left, so you can go back, yes? Unless you prefer Chrome, but then a whole 'nuther set of issues arise per TMac's points.

One other thing...

It's easy to be philosophical when your ox isn't being gored. It's very hard to act the philosopher when your ox is bleeding.

So it was easy for a white person to tell a black person to "go slow" in the 1960s--harder for a black person to swallow that. Easy for a gentile to say that Pol Pot was just as bad as Hitler; harder for a Jew to say that or to ignore it all because it was 70 years ago. Easy for a straight person to point to all the progress we've made on acceptance of gays; harder for a gay person to swallow the idea that his boss is taking specific steps to prevent him from getting married--especially as he or she may have someone right now that he or she loves and wants to marry.

To the part of this discussion which has moved from public opinion pressuring business decisions to talk of gay rights and gay marriage, I throw in the following based on the idea that words have power.
 I believe the arguments about marriage have been complicated, prolonged, and polarized by a refusal to define terms to fit reality as it has become. The word 'marriage' has come from past times and until recently was used without confusion to refer to the civil contract entered into by the participants whether or not it also was seen by those participants as a commitment to God based on religious beliefs and sanctified by the religion of the participants. The church participates in the two parties making a vow to God and breaking that vow to God has no legal implications whatsoever. Any church refusing to sanctify a vow which does not meet their religious requirements is perfectly alright in doing so under civil law and that is the way it should be.
 If the word 'Marriage' was thrown out of civil law and all marriages were, in the eyes of the presiding government, defined as 'civil contracts with rights and obligations defined by that government but the very same for any parties allowed to enter into that contract, then the debate could be much simpler and much more constructive.
 My personal example, which I have used before, is my marriage as a person raised in the Catholic church to a woman who was a Mormon. The ceremony was by a Mormon Bishop which meant, to my understanding, that the Mormon church recognized us as being married although they did not grant me any privileges which that church reserves for Mormons who had gone through various steps towards sainthood. They also did not allow that my wife had the privilege of being bound to me for eternity, something we eventually both came to view as a good thing although we are good friends twenty years after reaching that conclusion. The Catholic church would deny our right to ever break our marriage contract.
 My own [former] Catholic church does not believe that I was married at all except to the extent that they acknowledge my civil marriage but still saying I was not married in the eyes of God. I can live un-worried about that just as I can be un worried about how a few thousand other religious sects [?] view the commitment I made when I said, "I do". The state cannot say that I was not married because of any church position and it also cannot, and should not be able to, say that the Catholic church must call my union a marriage. In any case, the state of Utah endorsed my marriage and so the other 49 were obligated to do so too. That is because under civil law, the only kind that government has any right to apply to marriage, the state saw that marriage as a legally binding civil contract.
 Simply recognizing what is in fact the case, that in the arena of statutory law that all marriages are civil contracts, would narrow any controversy a great deal. Then define what combinations of humans are allowed to enter into that contract. When the civil union contract is seen as a legal document outlining the rights, obligations, and privileges defined under that contract and which are, or should be, equal among any who are entitled to enter into the contract as specified by law, it becomes a thing which no church can put asunder.
 I say that the word 'marriage' should be removed from the legal definition of what has been commonly called marriage and should be replaced by civil union. If gays, for instance, want to be joined and want all the legal rights and privileges granted to a heterosexual couple who are joined in what is actually a civil union even though many use a different term to describe it, then I say that all they need do is join a religion or church that recognizes a gay civil union as marriage and which calls it marriage. There are Christian churches that will do so. Those gays will then be married as much as I ever was. Or as little as I ever was depending on which religious authority they might see as an authority. If they want equal rights then demand the rights allowed to any other civil union, support has been moving rapidly in that direction for a while now. Meanwhile, I wish they would quit creating and pushing a political issue in a way that concentrates on one religiously significant term in a way that is very politically beneficial to the very ones who want to deny them any rights to any consensual arrangement at all that has anything to do with their sexuality. That bunch will strive to take away plenty of other rights beyond the laws concerning marriage, other rights that are important, even vital, to all of us. Let the terms 'marriage' and 'civil union' be meaningful in their separate realms but not overlap into each realm.
 Gays who push for the right to be married, as opposed to being civically union ed, and those who support them and jump into the polarized fray on those terms, are actually and demonstrably doing harm, even though it is unintended, to the Democratic party. That is usually frowned upon around here regardless the right or wrong or nuanced complications of the issue at hand.