I'm as gay as gay gets and gay married and I can't believe stupid websites like OK Cupid forced the issue enough to make him quit. He is a brilliant guy that helped bring a lot of the modern computer world to us. So what if he supported anti gay marriage. Its his right to do so. We can't all have the same opinion and I don't think his personal beliefs and small personal donation need to overshadow the 15 years of amazing computer science he gave us. Imagine if we were all professionally judged for one stupid personal thing we did 5 years ago.

I was actually glad when I read he was not quitting before he quit.


Here are his last two blog posts:
The resignation

Slides for the brief talk that I gave at a Harvard seminar on privacy and user data organized by John Taysom last week.

My talk was really more about the “network problem” than the “protocol problem”. Networks breed first- and second-mover winners and others path-dependent powers, until the next disruption. Users or rather their data get captured.

Privacy is only one concern among several, including how to realize economic value for many-yet-individually-weak users, not just for data-store/service owners or third parties. Can we do better with client-side and private-cloud tiers, zero-knowledge proofs and protocols, or other ideas?

In the end, I asked these four questions:

Can a browser/OS “unionize its users” to gain bargaining power vs. net super-powers?
To create a data commons with “API to me” and aggregated/clustered economics?
Open the walled gardens to put users first?
Still be usable and private-enough for most?

I think the answer is yes, but I’m not sure who will do this work. It is vitally important.

I may get to it, but not working at Mozilla. I’ve resigned as CEO and I’m leaving Mozilla to take a rest, take some trips with my family, look at problems from other angles, and see if the “network problem” has a solution that doesn’t require scaling up to hundreds of millions of users and winning their trust while somehow covering costs. That’s a rare, hard thing, which I’m proud to have done with Firefox at Mozilla.

I encourage all Mozillians to keep going. Firefox OS is even more daunting, and more important. Thanks indeed to all who have supported me, and to all my colleagues over the years, at Mozilla, in standards bodies, and at conferences around the world. I will be less visible online, but still around.

Pre Resignation:

I am deeply honored and humbled by the CEO role. I’m also grateful for the messages of support. At the same time, I know there are concerns about my commitment to fostering equality and welcome for LGBT individuals at Mozilla. I hope to lay those concerns to rest, first by making a set of commitments to you. More important, I want to lay them to rest by actions and results.

A number of Mozillians, including LGBT individuals and allies, have stepped forward to offer guidance and assistance in this. I cannot thank you enough, and I ask for your ongoing help to make Mozilla a place of equality and welcome for all. Here are my commitments, and here’s what you can expect:

Active commitment to equality in everything we do, from employment to events to community-building.
Working with LGBT communities and allies, to listen and learn what does and doesn’t make Mozilla supportive and welcoming.
My ongoing commitment to our Community Participation Guidelines, our inclusive health benefits, our anti-discrimination policies, and the spirit that underlies all of these.
My personal commitment to work on new initiatives to reach out to those who feel excluded or who have been marginalized in ways that makes their contributing to Mozilla and to open source difficult. More on this last item below.

I know some will be skeptical about this, and that words alone will not change anything. I can only ask for your support to have the time to “show, not tell”; and in the meantime express my sorrow at having caused pain.

Mozilla is a movement composed of different people around the world, working productively together on a common mission. This is important to our ability to work and grow around the world.

Many Mozillians and others know me as a colleague or a friend. They know that I take people as they come and work with anyone willing to contribute. At the same time, I don’t ask for trust free of context, or without a solid structure to support accountability. No leader or person who has a privileged position should. I want to be held accountable for what I do as CEO. I fully expect you all to do so.

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.

You will see exemplary behavior from me toward everyone in our community, no matter who they are; and the same toward all those whom we hope will join, and for those who use our products. Mozilla’s inclusive health benefits policies will not regress in any way. And I will not tolerate behavior among community members that violates our Community Participation Guidelines or (for employees) our inclusive and non-discriminatory employment policies.

You’ll also see more from Mozilla under my leadership in the way of efforts to include potential contributors, especially those who lack privilege. This entails several projects, starting with Project Ascend, which is being developed by Lukas Blakk. I intend to demonstrate with meaningful action my commitment to a Mozilla that lives up to its ideals, including that of being an open and inclusive community.

The last night of the week that I was supposed to take a vacation that I never happend, we went to Toronto to go see Andy C at Sound Academy.

It was an amazing 24 hours with about 6 miles of walking around the city to eat and then to and from the club to the Hotel.

Dancing to Andy was awesome. I believe the Sound Academy used to be the place called The Docks in the 90s. Its such an amazing location on the outer harbor.

Despite the posters promoting it on the street, I did not eat any LSD like 17 year old me would have.

Seems like everything is on sale. Some of the prices were actually competitive with price rite. For example the asparagus was the same price per lb but looked much nicer. Few more days till it is open till 11PM - whoop.

They now have shrimp scampi with artivhoke hearts over rice now. Its an awesome gluten free lunch option.

Went to lunch this week at melting point on Allen. The food was real good an the prices pretty reasonable. I would go back. I wish they had a gluten free sandwich option.

I seriously can never escape. I love what I do, I find it totally rewarding, but I really work all day everyday. This week I was supposed to be on vacation, including last thursday but everyday I worked for huge portions of the day. Yesterday for 12 hours which is 2 hours over my normal work day if I wasn't on vacation. I wake up with work phone calls and I stop working from bed as I go to sleep where I dream about work problems and then wake up to a work phone call.

In December I lost 4 days when they expired. Now I am losing about 60+ hours by April 1 because there is no time for me to take vacation. Everytime I try there is some mega project that needs to be done right now followed by a bunch of little things that are helping other people but add up.

I really can't ignore any of them it seems. Everytime, I ignore email, I just get a phone call. I keep asking myself why I am doing this when there are plenty of jobs out there that are better fit to my sanity...

We went to the wholefoods in Pittsburgh on the way home. If you remember I loved wholefoods in Orlando and (e:yesthatcasey) and I ate there everyday on our trip. Coming back from that trip I wanted one here so bad. Then I went to the Pittsburgh one. Its was so totally different. The prepared foods section seemed like so lame compared to the Orlando. If we got a wholefoods but its was a half rate one like that I would be so sad.

The trip was to visit (e:joe)'s sister for her 20th birthday today. After the walk around the city, we met up the with family for a trip to the botanical gardens. The botanical gardens are similar to ours but its just so much more refined plus they have a cafe. I wonder if ours would make more money with a cafe attached.

With our membership to the Buffalo Botanical Gardens we get reciprocal deals at ~300 botanical organizations in the US. So (e:joe) asked at the desk if we would get a discount and they were like "pfft - NO" as though we were asking something totally ridiculous.

Anyways the $15 entrance was totally worth it. The temperature, humidity and smells were amazing. I loved the banana scented flower bush in the Indian Forest exhibit. I would go back again in the summer. They have a new sustainable green section that has net 0 energy consumption.

We had so much fun touring around the city in the morning. I kind of wish I lived there now. We tried to go up in the Carnegie Castle but the desk clerk said they don't have any observation decks areas since 9/11.

It was hard to get good photos at night but we had so much fun running around the city in the middle of the night. The architecture was hard to photograph at night but Pittsburgh looks awesome at night. Everyone awesome building we have, they have ten of the same at higher quality. It makes me think no one will really ever travel here for the architecture of downtown even if we restored every historical building that exists.





















After a late start, we traveled all over the city looking for a cool place to hang out. We ended up at Lucky's which was one of the best gay bars I have ever been to. If you are in Pittsburgh and like divey gay bars packed with tons of people, I say check it out. The vibe kind of reminded me of the old buddies in Buffalo and also kind of like the barn in Toronto.

The downstairs looks kind of like a diner with booths and a round bar. We sat and had a drink and I honestly thought that was the whole bar till I saw a sign on a door that said something about nude dancers upstairs. Needless to say, we went in the door and up the stairs of what looks like an old row house. There are still marble fireplaces upstairs and the stairwell looked pretty residential from another era.

The disco lighting, mirror walls and dark interior, mixed with marble fireplaces and totally nude male strippers really set the mood. It was kind of funny how the strippers, who were wearing nothing would just stand up and flop their junk back and and then bend forward to talk to people at the bar, only to pretty much shove their open butt crack in the bar tenders face.

At the very end of the night everyone sang, "Last Dance" by Donna Summers with linked arms dancing in a circle. It was probably the gayest moment of my life.