After facing heavy criticism over the donation made to an anti-gay marriage campaign, Mozilla Chief Executive Brendan Eich has finally bid goodbye to the organisation. Eich confirmed his resignation in a blog post on Thursday.
“I’ve resigned as CEO and I’m leaving Mozilla to take a rest,” Eich wrote. “Thanks indeed to all who have supported me, and to all my colleagues over the years, at Mozilla, in standards bodies, and at conferences around the world. I will be less visible online, but still around.”
Mozilla’s executive chairwoman Mitchell Baker confirmed that Eich has left the company. “Mozilla prides itself on being held to a different standard and, this past week, we didn’t live up to it,” read the blog post.
“We know why people are hurt and angry, and they are right: it’s because we haven’t stayed true to ourselves. We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better.”
Eich’s appointment as Mozilla’s chief executive spurred outrage among LGBT supporters pointing to his donation of $1,000 (£603) to the California anti-gay marriage law Proposition 8 in 2008.
Employees of the California based organisation, unhappy with Eich’s promotion, voiced their opinions on social media demanding their anti-gay supporter CEO’s resignation. Three board members, Gary Kovacks, John Lilly, and Ellen Siminoff, even stepped down from the company’s board last week.
Earlier this week, dating website OkCupid also called out for a protest against Eich asking its users to ditch Mozilla Firefox for signing in into the website.
Mitchell Baker said Eich chose to step down from his role and made the decision “for Mozilla and our community.” Baker also said the replacement for Eich was still being discussed and that the company’s board would meet to discuss a new appointment.
Hilarious! Before I adjusted a script blocker plug-in for this site I got only ; “Please enable Javascript to view this site.”
Just like with me, Eich is not “ANTI GAY marriage” – he and I are “anti any other absurd combination being claimed as being marriage when it never was before”. Let’s be clear here, what is under attack is NOT homosexuality – it is the definition of the word “marriage”.
Why can’t they just come up with some ~other~ new word that proudly STANDS ON ITS OWN to represent their idea of a same sex pairing? I’d support it.