> One example: "He could have stayed if he wanted to." You don't know that and can't really know it, so stop saying it.

As I keep saying, the only publicly available evidence is that your resignation was voluntary. Voluntary implies optional. Optional implies you could stay. There's no leap of logic here.

Yes, there could be behind-the-scenes NDAs and private events that meant you couldn't have. But unless you provide any shred of evidence, then I can't go on those.

Imagine this like a court of law. Your vague hints of knowledge I am not privy to would be inadmissable evidence. Because of course it would be.

> (which I refute all the time by saying I resigned)

Well there you go! There's our answer. You weren't fired, you resigned. Right from the man himself :D

> Who asked you to hold anyone in contempt?

Who asked you who could get married and who couldn't?

I have the right to hold any opinion I want about anyone. It's just an opinion; it has no authority. People in this thread are mad at Mozilla, claiming they fired you. If that is true, I want to join them in their anger. But I want evidence first.

> No third or fourth alternative?

Sorry, I'm not trying to be obtuse. I can't think of a third or fourth alternative. I'm not the brightest bulb out there, but I like to think I'm reasonably capable of imagining multiple possible scenarios. But I've got nothing here.

> "The protestors had zero control over the Mozilla board."

Come on, now you're just messing with me. Nobody here believes people on the internet shouting at you had the power to force Mozilla's board to act the way they wanted. It's a company, not an elected body. You yourself made that argument about oppression and agency. They may not have liked their options, but nobody held a gun to anyone's head and forced them to fire you. Even if keeping you meant burning the whole company to the ground, they still had full autonomy to make their own choice.

Or are you going to go reductio ad absurdum and tell me that I don't (and can't) know if any protestors held a gun to your board members' heads? :P

The rest ... fair enough. It seems I need to preface everything with "it's my reasonable assumption that ..." when speaking with you ;)

> Just consider your "He could have stayed if he wanted to." Why'd you write that?

If your resignation was voluntary, that implies you could have stayed. If you couldn't, it would thus not be voluntary. Because that is what the word voluntary means. It implies you made a choice. If you were saying you chose to resign instead of being fired, then you didn't make a choice, you were fired. Calling that a voluntary resignation is bullshit.

> I mean what needs did it serve to say something you can't possibly know, as if it were an incontrovertible fact.

Our basic communication breakdown here is that I am treating fact as "what's in the public record"; and you are treating fact as "you were actually there for it." Yours is obviously superior. But you won't share the latter with me, again which is fine! But if you don't do so, then don't blame me for treating the former as fact. It's no different than the way a court of law would treat it. I'm not being unreasonable here. I can't read the tea leaves and divine what really happened, nor can anyone else. That doesn't mean we can't ever talk about it. There are lots of unknowns in the world, and I am following the way reasonable people discuss and interpret those things as best they can.