At the end of the day, society-at-large has a choice about what kind of value judgments it applies to whom in our society. Around the time of Eichgate, one of the most popular sentiments was that a commitment to a political freedom of speech did not guarantee freedom from the social fallout of said speech. The detractors were absolutely right -- you can say what you like, but the social consequences of your speech are yours to reap.<p>That said, I wonder if the mass-mob of people calling for Eich's head really understood the full reprecussions of what their witchhunt meant for how leaders are selected in the tech world, if you're thinking about the general question of "which individuals should be qualified as leaders in major tech companies?" I personally suspect society is much worse off by applying social justice criteria to unrelated leadership positions that are attempting to improve a completely separate area of society (technical transmission of data across a standard-driven medium).<p>Given our current fetishization of "majority-is-right" morality in the US, however, I suspect this subtelty is lost on most of the mob.
It's too bad and everyone lost out in the end. I was also angered by the donation, and disappointed in what had up until then been a personal hero of mine, but even then I still respected Brendan Eich for his many contributions to not only web technology but my own life through Mozilla products and JavaScript.<p>He could have done many things differently. He could not have taken the CEO position. He could have had a change of heart about his donation. There was also a bit of weirdness in his defense during the storm that struck me as tone deaf. In the end he stuck to his conviction, which might be admirable if his position wasn't about limiting the rights of others.<p>I don't mind having leaders who respect people of all walks of life and the argument that criticizing intolerant individuals in leadership positions is a form of intolerance is a specious argument. Yet in the end we still lost a great person doing good things on behalf of everyone. Life is weird that way, it's not all black and white.