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Comment by shittyanalogy | Hacker News Reader

The biggest impact this could possibly have is in producing legislation that lets large donations conceal their source because of fear of hateful retaliation. Ironic I know.

If we don't want to have those laws we need to be a little less witch-hunty about what we discover in the records.

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I personally don't think there's anything "witch-hunty" about this boycott. This information about Eich's donation has been available for some 6 years, and only became a recent issue when he was promoted to the head of an organization based on community values and community contributions.

I can guarantee you that the same thing would happen if someone who donated to Prop. 8 were appointed to the head of Wikimedia Foundation, or any similar organization that depends on a community's goodwill to flourish.

And to those commenting with complaints about what Eich is/isn't "allowed" to do: of course he's allowed to do whatever he wants (within the law). But if he takes a stand that is unpopular with some people, and is appointed to the head of an important organization, it's likewise their right to cease doing business with said organization.

I have mixed feelings. Some of the open source projects I'm most interested in at the moment are under the aegis of Mozilla, but I'm also not happy at all with the message this sends out to those of us who were deeply offended by Prop. 8.

He probably didn't want his donation to be public information and now he, and all of us, know exactly why large donators sometimes do everything they can to conceal themselves. Events like this, whether 6 years late or not, give good reason to not have to reveal yourself when donating. I mean it's quite literally still haunting him. Whether he still feels the same way or not.

Also it's one thing to cease doing business with an organization yourself. It's another thing entirely to try to incite other people to do the same using your notoriety as a tool for coercion.

Times change, people change, records do not. It's hard to explain what you were thinking and what was happening 6 years ago. It's easy to point a finger now and say, "look at what that asshole did."

Who is using their "notoriety as a tool for coercion"?

And if Eich no longer feels the same way, I suspect he could put an end to this by simply writing a blog post stating this. But I suspect that's not the case.

I've done things in the past that I'm not proud of, but I'm quick to disavow them when they come up. Are you implying that we shouldn't be held responsible for our past actions?

Here is a link to something he just posted to his blog: https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/

Are you implying that because someone does or does not write a blog post that somehow we know their true feelings?

Of course not, but at some point we have to take most people at their word, otherwise life becomes difficult.

You didn't answer my question. I'm genuinely interested in who you're talking about who's using their notoriety to "coerce" people.

We do not have to take people at their word about their opinions. That's childish. You will never know what anyone truly feels because you are not them. You can let them fill you with whatever they want or you can just continue your life observing their actions and planning yours accordingly. You can take his lack of blog posting denouncing his previous donation as a clear indicator that he's a homophobe, or you can understand that life is more complicated than that.

As per your previous question, the article is thus: http://www.teamrarebit.com/blog/2014/03/24/goodbye_firefox_m...

Now I'm not saying that people shouldn't act on their strong convictions, I'm merely saying that those in charge of team rarebit have decided to publicly incite ill will towards a person who made a donation on public record 6 years ago. I have no interest in deciding who is right or wrong. I'm simply pointing out that they are giving very good reason for people to want to keep their donations completely private.

Do we though? I think we need to fight to keep speech in the open. There's no constitutional right to free speech that can't be traced back to you.

If we're going to equate money and speech then we have to equate the fact that speech is audible. Money masquerading as speech needs to be as well.

If you're not willing to stand up for what you believe then you have no business saying it.

You don't think anonymous speech should be protected?

    Voting?
    Reporting crimes in your neighborhood?
    Protesting an employer decision?

You can't think of any case where people would want their speech to be anonymous with just reason?

In the US voting is not guaranteed to be anonymous. It's protected and (mostly) un-traced to prevent coercion. But the fact you voted is recorded. If you live in a district with few enough voters (or voters who all vote the same way) your voting record could be used to tell who you voted for.

I don't think the other ones you mentioned are particularly compelling, no. There are ways to protect the names of people who report crimes without guaranteeing absolute anonymity.

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