I haven't been paying overly close attention, but all of the reaction I have seen has generally been blog/twitter based expressions of sadness/disappointment/betrayal. Has it really escalated far beyond that? (Genuine question).

I've seen a few people say they won't be using Mozilla products any longer, which is up to them of course. I doubt it is any significant number of people.

The only thing I've seen that 'crossed the line' so to speak was the okcpuid thing urging users to stop using Firefox. I didn't see exactly what the message was. It sounded more like a marketing stunt to get some media attention. I think if it had been other people/companies targeted then people on HN would have been applauding their disruptive and entrepreneurial marketing department.

I don't see that that crosses any line, as such. It used to be very common for websites to tell people not to use Internet Explorer, sometimes on a purely technical basis, but often on a "Microsoft is evil" basis. This seems similar to the latter.

Flaming a company is a vastly different from death threats and hate mobs against a person.

I was responding to a comment about a website showing a message to Firefox users; the website made no death threats.

OKCupid blocked all Firefox users with a warning message saying that their users should not use a browser whose development CEO dislikes gay marriage.

Borders to extortion or unfair competition, in my eyes.

They didn't block them; they showed them a message, invited them to use an alternative browser, and allowed them to continue if they so wished.

They also continued to use JavaScript on their site, regardless of browser. Since Eich invented JavaScript, shouldn't they stop using it?

That's more of an accident of history, really. In his own words, Netscape told him to come up with something, anything, quick, and lo JavaScript was born. Had Netscape known that he was a closet homophobe, would they have hired him in the first place?

It's also much easier being an homophobe engineer rather than a homophobe CEO, because of the nature of the role. His technical achievements can be as impressive as you want and have no relation to his homophobia; being CEO is a role built on public relationships inside and outside the company, relationships that would be severely influenced by his (perceived) homophobia.

(I'm slightly wary of this ridiculous argument, but here goes...)

Eich wasn't the CEO of 'JavaScript', so that's not really the same thing, is it?

Presumably that part was written in JavaScript.

This is literally how the free market and competition work.

There were supposedly death threats, but I haven't seen any. In general though, and from an anecdotal perspective, various internet communities do seem to be more and more involved in 'causes' of various sorts.

Whether or not those causes lead to escalation seems to depend on the subject matter and participants, just like anything else really.

We should probably start a list of thing that don't lead to death threats online, it'll be shorter.

The most recent example was someone suggesting putting a famous woman's face on the next UK pound note and getting such threats.

So that's what a "witch hunt" is these days, eh...people blog, comment on the blog, post the blog to social networks, comment on the social network posts, make claims about how they'll change their consuming habits in response to the post...

There once was a day when "witch hunt" actually referred to strapping live human beings to kindling and setting them ablaze.

It's called smear. It happens to people in high places whose pyramid of power is missing a keystone or two.

Smear isn't fabricated: Smear refers to dirt which exists, being spread.

A witch hunt? Is he dead? Has he been beaten to death like man LGBT people?

Seems to me they found a witch. Or is bigotry just a myth?