Eich, who is a co-founder of Mozilla and the creator of JavaScript, was appointed CEO just 11 days ago. Outrage over his contribution first took hold on Twitter in 2012.
A couple of days after he took the Mozilla reins, he wrote a blog post in which he affirmed Mozilla's "commitment to equality in everything we do," and to work with "LGBT communities and allies." He wrote:
You will see exemplary behavior from me toward everyone in our community, no matter who they are; and the same toward all those whom we hope will join, and for those who use our products. Mozilla’s inclusive health benefits policies will not regress in any way. And I will not tolerate behavior among community members that violates our Community Participation Guidelines or (for employees) our inclusive and non-discriminatory employment policies.
Mozilla then posted a statement saying it supports LGBT equality.
But the dating website OkCupid used Firefox against the company, when early this week it started flashing users who accessed its site through Firefox the following message:
Hello there, Mozilla Firefox user. Pardon this interruption of your OkCupid experience.
Mozilla’s new CEO, Brendan Eich, is an opponent of equal rights for gay couples. We would therefore prefer that our users not use Mozilla software to access OkCupid.
Politics is normally not the business of a website, and we all know there’s a lot more wrong with the world than misguided CEOs. So you might wonder why we’re asserting ourselves today. This is why: we’ve devoted the last ten years to bringing people—all people—together. If individuals like Mr. Eich had their way, then roughly 8% of the relationships we’ve worked so hard to bring about would be illegal. Equality for gay relationships is personally important to many of us here at OkCupid. But it’s professionally important to the entire company. OkCupid is for creating love. Those who seek to deny love and instead enforce misery, shame, and frustration are our enemies, and we wish them nothing but failure.
If you want to keep using Firefox, the link at the bottom will take you through to the site.
However, we urge you to consider different software for accessing OkCupid.
Eich subsequently gave an interview to CNET in which he said he was sorry his donation had "caused pain."
"I saw that in friends' eyes, (friends) who are LGBT. I saw that in 2012. I am sorry for causing that pain," he said.
But he refused to back away from his previous position:
If you had the opportunity to donate to a Proposition 8 cause today, would you do so?
Eich: I hadn't thought about that. It seems that's a dead issue. I don't want to answer hypotheticals. Separating personal beliefs here is the real key here. The threat we're facing isn't to me or my reputation, it's to Mozilla.
You haven't really explicitly laid it out, so I'll just ask you: how do you feel gay-marriage rights? How did you feel about it in 2008, and how do you feel about it today?
Eich: I prefer not to talk about my beliefs. One of the things about my principles of inclusiveness is not just that you leave it at the door, but that you don't require others to put targets on themselves by labeling their beliefs, because that will present problems and will be seen as divisive.
OKCupid told ABC News that it ended its boycott Wednesday. It's unclear what role, if any, Eich will now play at Mozilla. "What’s next for Mozilla’s leadership is still being discussed," Baker wrote today.
