Brendan Eich

IMO, the trouble with COM and its imitators is that they're prone to gross over-use. The best example I know is Gecko, which over-used XPCOM and then had to go through what Mozilla folks called deCOMtamination. [1] I think IE might have over-used COM to some extent as well, but that's only speculation based on what I saw on the outside. (Disclosure: I work at Microsoft, but I joined well after IE became Edge, and I was never on that team.)

Then Chrome landed like a piece of alien technology, and if we took a look inside, we found that it was one giant binary module (DLL, .framework, or executable, depending on the platform) that internally didn't use anything like COM, at all. It was also fairly well-known for its use of link-time optimization. I wonder how much these things contributed to Chrome's famous speed.

Of course, Chrome was only able to pull this off because the team had great engineering discipline, and later, a great build system (first GYP, then GN). I remember when I built Chromium for the first time and was awed at how it was made up of hundreds of modules, but they were all built as static libraries and then linked together into one monster binary module at the end. These days, newer statically compiled languages like Go, Rust, and others are bringing large-scale static linking of arbitrary modules within reach for the rest of us.

If I may stretch the IC metaphor, I'm guessing something similar happened with actual ICs; better EDA tools made it more…

The Mozilla Foundation (and Corporation) are in a difficult position here, because they are being blamed for someone else doing something unethical, but it would also be unethical for them to do (or have done) anything differently in response to it.

Brendan Eich's behaviour in 2008 in trying to take the choice away from couples to marry just because they happen not to be straight is a despicable step to interfere with the rights of others. His apology this month (https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/) didn't express regret for making the donation, only for "having caused pain"; nothing in the apology suggests that he has actually changed his views. It fits the classic pattern of an apology for how other people reacted to what he did, rather than for what he did.

As abhorrent as I find his personal actions, it would not be appropriate for Mozilla to take political activities into account when making employment decisions, such as about promotions or dismissals. If employers could fire people for their political views or activities outside of work, it would be a net loss to our civil and human rights, even if in some cases such laws shield advocates for stripping away freedom and non-discriminatory treatment under the law.

The Mozilla Foundation has acted entirely fairly and appropriately here, and it is not fair to blame Mozilla for the actions of Brendan Eich or for not discriminating against him on the basis of his political beliefs.

> Google gets the best of both worlds here. As an open source project, Eddystone gets lots of hardware support from vendors, but if developers want to give users the best experience and have an easier time themselves, they have to submit to the walled garden. Eddystone doesn't need to be tied to Google though, and if developers want to use their own cloud solution or client API

This is a killer. This isn't really open source at all [0]. Google controls the eco-system, and has most of the other vendors at its mercy (like how they flip search algorithms, give Google products a prominent listing in the search page, blacklist developers/websites etc). More than Search, its the mobile OS and API monopoly that Google is trying to build that's going to hurt even more.

I work on AOSP, and I think it is ridiculous that Google owns so much of the eco-system [1] and continues to get praised for being "open" as well; very much like how this article seems to be praising them now.

Besides, whatever happened to proposing to a central body and getting stuff standardized (I get that its political and slow, and no ones like slow)? Google works with W3C to get stuff in the HTTP standard [2], with ECMA too [3], but seems to have problem engaging standards body for other things where it has a near monopoly. Not long after Chrome has taken over a large market share, Google would start treating W3C the same, if it hasn't doing been that already [4].

[0]…

It's a tradeoff between compatibility with existing JS versus perf/capability enhancements. The ECMAScript committee goes back and forth on this topic. The biggest stride in that direction was strict mode, which is intended to catch most of the low hanging fruit. I know Brendan Eich has mentioned a number of things that could change to get the language faster. I don't, however, know if I read it all in one place or I'm combining nultiple one-off examples.

I'm not confident enough in my memory to write out a probably incorrect list of things I remember. Here's a list of the various things I've read from Brendan in case you're interested in tracking it down:

http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/3851#comment-57671

This is the LtU thread my previous comment referred to. It's a large (and fantastic!) thread, but I believe that comment and children are the most direct comments back and forth between Mike and Brendan. Andreas Gal is also on the thread and from Mozilla.

http://www.aminutewithbrendan.com/

Brendan's weekly JS podcast. They're relatively accessible and generally cover a lot of area. A good way to get in the language zeitgeist.

http://brendaneich.com/

Brendan's blog, mostly focuses on ES Harmony stuff and Mozilla specific topics.

> Mr. Eich once gave $1K to a cause that was anti-gay.

And $2.1K to a prop 8 supporter [0]

> He backtracked and apologized but was cancelled anyways.

This is lie and you are re-writing history. I can find no such statement from him. In fact all he said was he wanted to "express my sorrow at having caused pain" [1], the classic "I'm sorry your were offended by that" non-apology. He has never stated that his support of Prop 8 was wrong, he side-stepped the whole thing expecting us not to notice.

> It will eventually come back to kill those that think you are not allowed to marry your mother, and probably, eventually, to those that think you are allowed to be religious

What the... no seriously, what the heck? You can believe whatever you want to believe but you don't get to push your religious values onto others which is exactly what Prop 8 did. Please cut out the BS that this is somehow going to lead to outlawing religion.

[0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/03/new-mozilla-ceo-issues-statement-expresses-sorrow-for-causing-pain/

[1] https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/

He opposed basic human rights.

Does Mr. Eich still feel the same now as he did when he made that donation? I haven't done any research on this topic outside of the linked Ars article, but I find it interesting that Eich's own statement[1] about his donation completely avoids talking about his motivations for the donation. He even implied that he does not feel animosity towards gay people (although what he explicitly said was that the donation does not constitute evidence of animosity). So I'm left wondering as to what Mr. Eich actually feels on the topic.

Yes, he donated money to a cause that opposed basic human rights, and that's undeniably an action worthy of condemnation. But in isolation, this 6-year-old action does not prove anything about his feelings on the matter today. What matters right now is how Mr. Eich will lead Mozilla going forward, not personal acts taken 6 years ago that were not on behalf of Mozilla.

[1]: https://brendaneich.com/2012/04/community-and-diversity/