“And it’s Mozilla, we always do the hard thing,” said Brendan Eich with a genuine laugh, to J. O. Dell, as the latter interviewed him. Although those words were in a different context, that of Firefox OS, they seem ironic in light of the events that happened during the last week.
Eich was appointed the CEO of Mozilla on March 24. He stepped down from his post on Thursday. His brief 10-day stint as CEO of Mozilla showed us how populist opinion wins over rational thought. Eich created Javascript, the programming language that majority of the web software is written in, and founded Mozilla Foundation as a vehicle to work toward a free web. Eich’s contribution to building the web and keeping it free is probably second only to Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the World Wide Web.
Days after Eich took the position, a public outcry broke out over Eich’s $1,000 donation in support of Proposition 8, a California state constitution amendment proposing a ban on same sex marriage.
Employees at Mozilla publicly tweeted asking Eich to step down. OKCupid, an online-dating website, publicly asked its clients to change their browsers after Eich was appointed CEO. Mozilla released a blog stating its support for GLBT marriage and another clarifying facts about Eich’s resignation being his own decision and not a result of peer pressure.
Yet, there are deeper questions that this episode asks of us as a global community. To understand the fallacy played out in the episode, it is crucial to have a true understanding of Mozilla.
Mozilla is best described as a “chaord.” The term, coined by Visa founder and former CEO Dee Hock, means “chaotic order.” Mozilla believes in three things as an organization: distributed decision making, nodal authority and routing among the distributed branches. All employees keep the Mozilla mission, which is to work for a free and inclusive web. John Lilly, former CEO of Mozilla, explained it as analogous to citizenship — each user of the Internet must help build it as he would help build his country being a citizen.
Mozilla is not a corporate company like Apple or Microsoft in which the CEO calls the shots. Mozilla is a nonprofit organization. The structure of Mozilla as an organization is utterly unique. The closest that any other organization comes to is Wikipedia.
The argument that GLBT employees and corporate partners should be concerned that Eich is at the helm is invalid. Even if Eich’s own best decision-making is biased, the structure of the organization is such that he holds no power to affect a change without passing through a ton of other checks. The decision-making is distributed and authority is nodal, not central.
Free opinion allows everyone to have a voice if it goes against popular judgment. Coercing a man to step down from his work is not democracy. It is certainly not a way to win a policy argument.
Mozilla has specific policies regarding how to treat issues that arise out of differences in personal opinions and the inclusiveness of the community. If the personal opinions of any member of the Mozilla community are in conflict with the community’s principles, then the member must make the distinction utterly clear and not associate Mozilla with his or her personal opinion. If this is followed, then the rest of the community is to treat the opinion as a private matter and not a Mozilla issue. Eich’s donation was first unearthed in 2011. Eich was then the Chief Technology Officer for Mozilla. Mozilla and Eich himself had followed the above policy.
The Mozilla community had then dealt with this matter, both externally and internally. Hence, the media firestorm that was created this time was unnecessary and the accusations made are thereby invalid.
Eich contributed to Mozilla’s vision. Of all, he understands the mission and its execution. To propose that his personal opinion about equality of marriage will result into a conflict of interest for Mozilla is to accuse him of not being able to differentiate between his personal views and the principles of an organization he founded and helped build for 11 years.
Mozilla prides itself on being a meritocratic organization. To undervalue Eich’s merit over his personal beliefs betrays a deeper chasm in the community. The ad hominem culture played out its part cunningly here. However flawed or otherwise his personal beliefs, Eich did not deserve to be shunted out of an organization he helped build, a cause he helped fight for.
Send your thoughts to Naman at technician-viewpoint@ncsu.edu.