Let's not protest protesters
Jon Foreman (of the band Switchfoot) recently wrote a post called “Why I Refuse To Protest Protestors”. In it, he talked about his experience dealing with protests at his band's concerts. A few sentences he wrote struck me the most,
All at once I had an epiphany: these puzzling creatures that are yelling at you are human souls – as unpredictable, perplexing and unpredictable as I am. Here's the shocker: this guy with the bullhorn could be my cousin! he could be a friend of mine! Better yet: this guy could be me! If our lives were swapped, who can say that I would be any different? I put nothing below me. Who can say what I would do if I had his reality? Compassion makes you realize what you have in common with the rest of humanity.
For me as a Mozillian, these past few days have been confusing and unsettling. First it was the protests against Brendan's appointment. For an organization you are a part of, for a pioneer you look up to, for them to be rallied against, it was hard to understand. Then it was Brendan's resignation. That was unexpected and felt like things falling apart. Now it is another wave of protests against Brendan's departure. In the midst of this whirlwind, I want to feel anguish. I want to shout. Why couldn't Brendan just recant? Why couldn't the protesters just understand? Why couldn't the media just set the story straight? Why couldn't Mozilla just handle everything a little better? I want to protest.
But that's not what Mozilla is about. Like Katharina said, Mozilla is great at not only shipping great products but also at shipping love. It was love, love for the web, that first brought Mozilla together. It is love that continues to drive our mission now. Like Jon wrote,
On my best days, I want to stand for love conquering a multitude of wrongs. I want to stand for forgiveness, for mercy, for beauty, for grace. I stand for you, sir and madame. Whether you are holding a megaphone or not. Even when you refuse to shake my hand I love you. Whether you insult me or not, drunk or sober; I honestly love you! I love your passion, your fervor, your dedication. I want to know you better. I want to find out what makes you tick. I want to know why you believe what you believe. I want to learn from you. I am for you, emphatically for you!
Let's do what we do best, at showing love. Show love to Brendan; thank him for all that he's done and wish him the best. Show love to the activists; empathize with them. Show love to people who think Mozilla is not inclusive. Show love to the journalists, to companies protesting us. Show love to the Board, to your peers, to the community. Let's show our love to Mozilla.
Comments
@serr: Where did Mozilla say anything like that? I don't even see anyone from the Mozilla community saying that. I see a lot of outside commenters being forceful about their opinions. But it's not like Mozilla fired Eich. Or even reacted in a negative way towards him being CEO. In fact, the deluge of positive blogs on Planet Mozilla paint the Mozilla community as a whole as very accepting. It's the people from outside Mozilla who seem to have a problem. So attacking Mozilla is the wrong way to go about this. You're attacking a community who's already suffering enough. Don't kick them when they're down.
“Don't kick them when they're down.”
Who is down exactly? The Mozillians who wrote everywhere “he may be a genius but I don't agree with him, he should apologize, bla bla” or the LGBT inquisition who demanded and finally got his head? The only ones who are down are users of Mozilla products who are showed how Mozilla doesn't pursue technical excellence but a political agenda. It wasn't me writing all that things about Mozilla values and mission.
LorenzoC, what about companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, etc? They have values too, which can be seen as political. In fact, a lot of organisations have these values, especially when they're interacting with people a lot.
Exactly, in fact I have been a Mozilla supporter since its foundation because I thought it was different from companies like Google, Apple, etc. I have been evangelizing Mozilla against the said companies.
What happened these days is I was confirmed about a trend I have seen coming since a while. Mozilla has lost his focus on software and it became a sort of “progressive” organization which openly declare the intention of reshaping humanity according with its (absolute) “values”.
I don't like current people at Mozilla, who spend more time in a sort of “pride parade” instead of developing software, I don't like Mozilla's communication, I don't like Mozilla's plans and actions, things dropped, things promoted. I don't like the hypocrisy of Mozilla and mozillians about the fact that the very first thing they say and repeat when speaking about Eich is that Mozilla's mission is to support “same-sex marriage” and they don't agree with him. Which is totally irrelevant because Eich was qualified for the position and he always respected Mozilla's internal guidelines about “respecting diversity”. The said guidelines clearly state that what Eich thinks or does was out of Mozilla's office is his own private life. But nobody ad Mozilla took this stance, which was the only fair, correct and appropriate one.
So I am forced to quit being a supporter and an evangelist. I will use software from Mozilla if it fits my needs or when I don't have better options. I will just leech, because Mozilla doesn't deserve it any better. No connection between me and Mozilla is possible.
These are the Mozilla employees (the less than 10 mentioned in the company FAQ on the issue) that took to Twitter and brought their political views to the workplace: Chris McAvoy, Chloe Varelidi, John Bevan, Jessica Klein, and Sydney Moyer
The posts of these few individuals were taken by the media and homosexual blogs and falsely presented as representative of the Mozilla community at large. The premise was that having Eich as CEO would result in the homosexual community at large boycotting the Mozilla brand. Picking up on the issue OKcupid started a boycott as well. The rest is history now.
Unfortunately the larger global community has responded negatively to the handling of Eichs forced resignation, which of coursed was forced, by external pressure responding to internal agitation (the names listed above). Over the last week users across the globe have been uninstalling all Mozilla products because of the demands of a tiny minority.
It's very sad when so small a number of people, who live in wee little isolated social bubbles, can destroy the future of an entire movement. Because of these people Mozilla is now being interpreted as incompatible with social, cultural and religious beliefs around the globe.
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Mozilla is exposed as internally controlled by jackbooted thugs, who believe their sick lifestyles must be accepted by everyone without questions or disagreement. Enough. Let's hope Mozilla suffers greatly as result of this exposure.
Good riddance!