Mozilla Chief Executive Brendan Eich has stepped down, the company said on Thursday, after an online dating service urged a boycott of the company’s web browser because of a donation Eich made to opponents of gay marriage.<\/p>\n
The software company came under fire for appointing Eich as CEO last month. In 2008, he gave money to oppose the legalization of gay marriage in California, a hot-button issue especially at a company that boasts about its policy of inclusiveness and diversity.<\/p>\n
“We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act,” wrote Mozilla Executive Chairwoman Mitchell Baker in a blog post. “We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry.”<\/p>\n
The next step for Mozilla’s leadership “is still being discussed,” she added, with more information to come next week.<\/p>\n
While gay activists applauded the move, many in the technology community lamented the departure of Eich, who invented the programming language Javascript and co-founded Mozilla.<\/p>\n
“Brendan Eich is a good friend of 20 years, and has made a profound contribution to the Web and to the entire world,” venture capitalist Marc Andreessen tweeted.<\/p>\n
Eich donated $1,000 in 2008 in support of California’s Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in the state until it was struck down by the Supreme Court in June.<\/p>\n
His resignation came days after OkCupid.com, the popular online dating site, called for a boycott of Mozilla Firefox to protest the world’s No. 2 Web browser naming a gay marriage opponent as chief executive.<\/p>\n
On Monday, OkCupid sent a message to visitors who accessed the website through Firefox, suggesting they use browsers such as Microsoft Corp’s Internet Explorer or Google Inc’s Chrome.<\/p>\n
“Mozilla’s new CEO, Brendan Eich, is an opponent of equal rights for gay couples,” the message said. “We would therefore prefer that our users not use Mozilla software to access OkCupid.”<\/p>\n
Dating site calls for FireFox boycott over gay marriage<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Firefox to start selling browser ads<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n