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by Yoric 1370 days ago
It's complicated.

Brave was founded by Brendan Eich, long-time Mozilla developer, long-time Mozilla CTO, briefly Mozilla CEO.

Brendan Eich also happened to be an anti-gay-marriage activist and donator (afaik, only his spare time, not at work) and California law says that if you donate more than [some sum of money], you must specify your employer. So, suddenly, a few days after Brendan Eich was nominated CEO, someone on Twitter published the records of Brendan Eich's donation, phrasing it as "Mozilla is donating against gay rights", or something like that. A shitstorm started, including death threats against Mozilla employees, a highly hypocritical PR campaign by OKCupid (whose CEO was member of the same political circles as Brendan Eich) to boycott Mozilla, etc. Brendan Eich was convinced to resign from Mozilla after about two weeks of this.

That's probably what GP calls "banned from Mozilla".

Of course, after this, US Conservatives rephrased this into "Mozilla is persecuting Christians", so the death threats continued, just from the other side.

Source: I was there.

2 comments

> Brendan Eich also happened to be an anti-gay-marriage activist and donator

AFAIK he only donated some money in 2008; I can't find anything on him being an "activist"?

And 2008 was the same year Obama said "I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage." Although Obama did support it a few years later (2012). And the prop 8 he donated to was actually passed, so a majority of CA residents at the time agreed with him. My point is, it was a mainstream view (and to some degree, still is, although less so).

For what it's worth, I strongly support same-sex marriage, but I feel this ostracisation of anyone who disagreed is not doing the cause any good... Oh well, old drama...

> AFAIK he only donated some money in 2008; I can't find anything on him being an "activist"?

I may be misremembering that part.

> Brendan Eich also happened to be an anti-gay-marriage activist and donator (afaik, only his spare time, not at work)

Presumably the donations were of money that he made at work.

As if the history of the dollars used is relevant. Chase money far enough and 90% of US bills have some trace of cocaine. Should we avoid any and all donations because it's drug money?
> Presumably the donations were of money that he made at work.

And? It's his money at that point, is it not? Isn't "work" trading labour for money? While working you abide by the rules and principles of your employer and outside of that, you operate by your own principles.