Brendan Eich, the chief executive of Mozilla was appointed on March 24th, just last month.
On April 1st, Dating Website OKCupid made an attempt to deter its users from accessing the site via Mozilla Firefox. “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 the Mozilla software to access OKCupid,” a message that is seen by OKCupid visitors using Mozilla Firefox to access the site.
Users were directed to use other internet browsers such as Internet Explorer and Chrome. OKCupid however unblocked Mozilla Firefox on Wednesday. Nevertheless, OKCupid had already gained substantial media attention for encouraging its users to stop using Firefox, and this was just part of the heavy criticism that had been going on since Mr. Eich’s appointment, who in addition to being co-founder of Mozilla was also the creator of the JavaScript scripting language.
Following this controversy, Mr. Eich has stepped down, not only as chief executive of Mozilla but also from the board of Mozilla Foundation, the non-profit organization that owns Mozilla Corporation.
Mozilla’s executive chairwoman Mitchell Baker who announced the decision in a blog post says the people are right to be hurt and angry.
“We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast to engage with the people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better”
In 2008, Mr. Eich donated $1000 in support of anti gay marriage law proposition 8, which although initially passed was later overturned by the US Supreme court in 2013.
Ms Baker apologized for initially defending Mr. Eich’s appointment. Potential replacement is still being discussed, and more details will be announced next week.
Source: BBC
