[Timon3]

Why should they have to vet everyone? If I learn that the people who deliver my packages, manufacture my phones, or grow my food support practices that I deem fundamentally harmful to society, I change my behavior accordingly. Where does this weird idea come from that I have to vet literally everyone for my rejection of Brave to be valid?

> The injection of politics into absolutely everything is so arbitrary and harmful.

Are you referring to Eich, or the people who react to his political choices?

[rpdillon]

You're probably going to want to take a look at how your smartphone battery is made. You're taking a principled stand on the basis of not using a browser from a company cofounded by a guy that voted differently than you, but it sounds like you're willfully ignoring the child slave labor used to create the device you're using to type that opinion.

Do as you please, but it makes no sense to me, and doesn't strike me a principled at all: it's basically virtue signaling. But then again, I don't view people that hold different political views as my enemy. They're just people I disagree with, and they can still make a great browser, even though we disagree on some things.

[Timon3]

Sorry, but if you think that the issue is that Brendan Eich "voted differently than" me, you're either not understanding or willfully misrepresenting what this discussion is about.

[rpdillon]

I'm not sure what you're so upset about. He gave a thousand dollars to a political campaign that was in favor of outlawing gay marriage in California. This is standard political stuff that people can agree or disagree on.

What's being misrepresented?

[Timon3]

First, I'm pretty sure you know what I'm upset about considering your first comment ignored the donation, even though that's the primary critique levied against him.

Second, it's your subjective view that this "is standard political stuff that people can agree or disagree on", and I very much disagree! Tax policy or similar areas, sure, we can agree or disagree. But keeping basic rights (or even taking them away) from a subset of the population is not "standard political stuff" to me.

Would you say the same if, instead of gay marriage, the issue was interracial marriage? I sincerely hope not, even though certain voices on the right are trying to turn this into "standard political stuff" too these days.

[rpdillon]

I do view interracial marriage the same way. The answer is very clear to me, but I know it's a constant topic of discussion across the world in different societies, religions, and cultures. Right now there's a debate in my country about whether we should post religious texts on the walls of public schools. We've also regressed in our discussion of women's rights and autonomy with their body. The list is basically endless, and amazingly, people really do have different opinions about this stuff. I mean that seriously. It's easy to imagine that there's one right answer and that you have it. But if I look around at the opinions of 300 million people, there's still 37% in the U.S. that think Trump is doing a good job.

I guess I'm just not willing to write off 40% of society because they disagree on a particular issue that may seem clear as day to me. The most important thing I would like to foster is civility in our discourse with our neighbors, and that has been sacrificed on the altar of dogma to a degree that I cannot condone.

But I'm not absolute in my tolerance. Marriage rights don't trigger me much at all, but genuine human rights abuses like we're seeing in the wars going on, and the rise of fascism in the US are both areas where I would boycott a company (like OnlyOffice, for example).

Tax policy is actually a big part of the driver of fascism, since it entrenches oligarchs and allows consolidation of e.g. the media, and therefore the narrative. But I guess I'd call that standard political stuff, too.

So I guess I'm not exactly sure where I draw the line, but donating a thousand dollars to speak out against gay marriage didn't cross it for me. Yes, I disagree with him. And yes, I still like Brave.

I do appreciate the discussion!

[MarsIronPI]

What technical difference do the social opinions of the people who write your software make? Genuinely curious.

[Timon3]

What exactly is a "technical difference", and why is only that relevant? I am more than my interactions with software and companies, just like every other human. Why should I focus on an arbitrary subset of factors when making decisions?

[MarsIronPI]

Because the technical factors are what you experience when you interact with software written by a company/person?

[Timon3]

And the non-technical factors are what my friends and loved ones have to experience due to Brendan Eich's choices. So again, why should I ignore them? I'm more than a user of software.

[MarsIronPI]

Because when we decide on a goal for our technical work and decide on an acceptable code of conduct inside the project, our differences outside the project don't matter to our collaboration within the project. This is a core foundation of the Free Software and Open Source movements. (And it's worrisome to me that it's being eroded.)

My point is that this same setting aside of irrelevant (to the technical aspects) differences should apply to use of software in addition to development of software.

[JoshTriplett]

> Because when we decide on a goal for our technical work and decide on an acceptable code of conduct inside the project, our differences outside the project don't matter to our collaboration within the project.

That's a choice you are free to make. Other people can and will make different choices. Many people never shared that principle, and instead happily exercised freedom of association to not support or spend time around awful people.

Projects are not some magic boundary in which everything outside is left outside. You can't dump piles of money into hurting your colleagues and expect them to see that as a neutral choice.

[Timon3]

I'm not working on a project together with Brendan Eich, I'm choosing not to use a product from which he directly profits. I sincerely hope that we both agree that this is a completely normal and rational choice.