Three Mozilla board members—including former CEOs—step down [Updated]

Fallout over Mozilla Corporation's hire of Brendan Eich as CEO led to the resignation of three board members, two of whom were former Mozilla CEOs. Today, The Wall Street Journal reported that former Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs, along with two other board members, stepped down last week in response to Eich's controversial hire.

Kovacs, who departed the CEO post last April to take up the same job at AVG Technologies, was joined in tendering his resignation from the board by Shmoop CEO Ellen Siminoff and Greylock partner John Lilly, himself also a former Mozilla Corporation CEO. According to anonymous sources cited by the Journal, Kovacs and co. resigned because they had sought an outside hire to work alongside Eich (then-CTO) and Mozilla co-founder Mitchell Baker. Eich's financial support of Proposition 8, a 2008 ballot initiative to ban gay marriage in California, was not mentioned as a reason for their resignations.

Eich's support of Proposition 8 led to criticism from employees and gay software developers who built apps for the Firefox Marketplace. Eich is the creator of JavaScript and helped found Mozilla.org in 1998. He held the CTO position before being named CEO.

Yesterday, Mozilla Foundation Executive Director Mark Surman issued a statement to Ars in response to employees speaking out against Eich's hiring. "Our culture of openness extends to letting our staff and community be candid about their views on Mozilla’s direction," Surman wrote. "We're proud of that inclusiveness and how it distinguishes Mozilla from most organizations."

Mozilla press representatives had confirmed the resignations to the Journal but did not comment further. We have reached out to Mozilla for further comment.

Update: On Saturday, a Mozilla spokesperson forwarded a statement to Ars: "The three board members ended their terms last week for a variety of reasons. Two had been planning to leave for some time, one since January and one explicitly at the end of the CEO search, regardless of the person selected." The representative offered no further clarification.