Mozilla staff call for new CEO to stand down over donation to anti-gay marriage campaign

Employees and volunteers at open source organisation Mozilla, which creates the Firefox browser, have called for its new chief executive to stand down because of donations to anti-gay marriage campaigns

Employees and volunteers at Mozilla - the organisation which promotes open source software such as its Firefox browser - have called for new chief executive Brendan Eich to stand down because of his donations to political campaigns to ban gay marriage.

This week Mozilla named Brendan Eich as its new chief executive, following the resignation of Gary Kovacs which was announced in April last year. Eich was previously Mozilla's chief technology officer and has a long history with the group dating back to before its formation from Netscape, having worked on the Navigator browser in the 90s and creating JavaScript in a marathon, ten-day programming session in 1995.

The controversy stems from a $1,000 donation he made in 2008 to support California's Proposition 8, which opposed gay marriage. The donation was listed in a public database with Mozilla appearing next to Eich's name as his employer. It caused controversy in the technology industry when it was uncovered in 2012.

Eich posted on his own blog to "express my sorrow at having caused pain" and promised an "active commitment to equality" at Mozilla.

"I am committed to ensuring that Mozilla is, and will remain, a place that includes and supports everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, age, race, ethnicity, economic status, or religion," he wrote.

But employees were unconvinced. Chris McAvoy, who leads Mozilla's Open Badges project, took to Twitter last night to call for the new chief executive to stand down and said that he had been "disapointed" by his promotion.

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This is pretty rough stuff.  You can be hounded out of your job because of a political donation you make.  An attack on democracy