As a programmer living in California whose foreign-same-sex-marriage is not recognized by the state... I'm halfway to setting up a Mozilla boycott. It's not Mozilla itself that gave the money, of course... its just their most visible (and well paid) employee.
As a Mozilla employee that strongly supports the right of all persons to marry, let me be the first to say: who the hell cares? At the end of the day, what he believes doesn't matter to me or anyone else.
This isn't really an HN topic, is it?
Also, anyone can fucking donate to whoever they want. Notice in the "name" column it says "Brendan Elch", not "Mozilla, Inc." What he does with his money is his business.
The assumption here is that there's no legitimate reason for supporting a gay marriage ban. Obviously A LOT of people disagree with that fundamental assumption, otherwise the potential ban wouldn't exist.
Personally, you have to address why the government is involved in marriage at all. From my understanding, it is for the purpose of encouraging the family unit and the perpetuation of society through offspring. Gay people can't have offspring unless you count lesbians and artificial insemination, but that takes the conversation down a whole other tangent.
My main point simply being, there are non-human-rights justifications for not endorsing / encouraging gay marriage, so judgment is premature.
Just removed Firefox for Ubuntu from my system. I've been using Firefox for 8 years under both Windows and Linux, and stuck with it despite all the bugs, but this is outrageous. I won't miss it. Chrome is far better.
This would fall under the heading of "political discussion".
Mr Eich's personal beliefs are of no consequence; when his personal beliefs and his employer's name are connected, then there is a problem. I occasionally have used Firefox for searches. Mr Eich's proud display of hatred, using the Mozilla name on his contribution to Prop H8, contributes to my not using Mozilla again!
I don't want to condemn Brendan Eich until I've heard his side of the story, though I think he has almost certainly acted in a way that I can't approve of here. I'm disappointed by his donation, though no more disappointed than I am about any of the other donors - I don't expect higher standards of Brendan or Mozilla than I would of anyone else, and I think that people condemning him should remember that liking Mozilla's products is not contingent on liking the personal politics of people who work for Mozilla.
His personal views have no bearing on the work that Mozilla does, or his work as part of that. As a private individual he's entitled to his own views and to support those views with his own money, and I personally believe that society benefits from allowing a distinction between the personal and professional spheres. Brendan Eich the public figure should retain respect as a pivotal figure in the development of the web, even if Brendan Eich the private individual holds views that some (though by no means all) people find deeply objectionable.