Karl T.

There are various memorials and eulogies going around the Internet this weekend -- the Mozilla project has lost one of its early activists, an enfant terrible who did quite a bit of work to get Mozilla on the map, and into the public's consciousness.

Into the space that he occupied, I have this to say:

When you get to the Heaven you professed to believe in, my former colleague, I hope you find that every single homophobic remark you made, every colleague whose marriage you questioned, every trans person whose identity you tried to dismiss, every inclusive idea you shot down because "it's not a very good idea, to be honest," and most especially, every marginalized person, every one of "the least of these" you drove away from Mozilla, is permanently inscribed in your Book of Life. I hope you see that every single person you slighted, diminished, dismissed, and argued their validity with was every bit as much a child of Heaven as you were. And I hope you are deeply, deeply ashamed.

And then I hope God enfolds you in Her arms and tells you that you can do better next time before She sends you around again to learn something. Because you hurt a metric fuckton of my friends, associates and colleagues. All of the work you did promoting Mozilla, open source software, and the early Internet doesn't erase the fact that you made Mozilla an actively hostile place to work for some of the most brilliant and compassionate people I've ever worked with.

And when I celebrate the Queering MozFest track in London this October, I will think about how much you would have decried it, and maybe even tried to stop it. And I will redouble my efforts to make sure that every one of my queer/trans/GSM colleagues knows that they are welcome, and that Mozilla is a better place to work because they are there.