Mozilla co-founder and Javascript
creator Brendan Eich's ascent to Mozilla CEO has prompted a boycott
over his support for Proposition 8, California's 2008 voter-approved
constitutional amendment restricting marriage to heterosexual couples,
which the courts have since struck down.
Eich, who donated $1,000 to the
campaign to approve Proposition 8, was named CEO on Monday.
Hampton Catlin, creator of Wikipedia
Mobile and CSS extension language Sass, and his husband Michael are
co-founders of Rarebit, a development firm set to release a
dictionary app to the Firefox Marketplace.
The Catlins said in a blog post that
they have decided to “boycott all Mozilla projects.”
“We will not develop apps or test
styles on Firefox any more,” the
couple wrote.
“This is in protest of the
appointment of Brendan Eich to the position of CEO of the Mozilla
Foundation, where he had previously served as CTO. We will continue
our boycott until Brendan Eich is completely removed from any day to
day activities at Mozilla, which we believe is extremely unlikely
after all he's survived and the continued support he received from
Mozilla.”
“Brendan Eich was an active supporter
of denying our right to be married and even to start this business,”
the couple wrote, a reference to Michael Catlin's visa status.
Eich responded to the controversy in a
blog post, saying he wanted to express his “sorrow at having
caused pain.”
“[It is] 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 contribution to
Mozilla and to open source difficult,” Eich wrote.