I agree with everything DHH wrote about London. Cry me a river.
Open source fascism was not on my bingo card.
Is there a cheat sheet somewhere to know what projects are run by lunatics?
Issue is, fascists engage in entryism a lot more than leftists, so there’s a good chance it’ll get flooded with plausible sounding but fake reports (pretty easy to AI generate then touch it up by hand to hide the telltale signs), or at worse will be used to harass marginalized folks by trying to frame 10+ year old posts (if not completely fake ones) as representative of someone today. Also you’ll be creating them an easy to search solidarity list, so they’ll be just supporting those projects even more.
Jesus kurwa ja pierdole… Code is code. Who the fuck cares who wrote it? Unless project itself serves racist/transphobic/homophobic/etc purposes (like an app specifically build to doxx gay people or something) I don’t care who’s developing it. If you don’t agree with the developers simply don’t donate or contribute to the project. If it’s paid don’t support their business. If it’s free - who cares?
I don’t really care that some influencers use open source to promote their shitty agenda. There are shitty influencers everywhere and there’s plenty of fascist money to go around so yes, they will always find some sponsors. Don’t donate, don’t contribute, don’t engage. But if the code is already written and does something useful… who cares who wrote it?
I think the issue here is that 12 million has been donated to a fascist, not just that some people use said fascist’s software.
Like yes it’s technically a foundation, but he can just use that money to further his fascist goals. Remember, this is a dude who complained that non-white people dare exist in London
I think the issue here is that 12 million has been donated to a fascist, not just that some people use said fascist’s software.
I agree. It’s an issue that some right wing foundation got 12 million dollars. It’s a political issue. The fact that some people use some free software is not an issue at all. What I was talking about is people mixing those two things, exactly like you did in this sentence. I wrote more about in a comment below so I’m not going to repeat it here.
Can you please be ignorant somewhere else? Thanks!
Jesus kurwa ja pierdole… Code is code. Who the fuck cares who wrote it? Unless project itself serves racist/transphobic/homophobic/etc purposes (like an app specifically build to doxx gay people or something) I don’t care who’s developing it.
Yeah but the problem with that argument is that when kind and empathetic people have to starve and beg for money with equal or higher level of quality output compared to those who peddle racism and bigotry, it feels like the world only rewards racism and bigotry.
You tell me: there are a lot of great projects that don’t spread hatred, bigotry and disparity but they don’t get even a fraction of the funding this project gets. And this project is just some dotfiles over ArchLinux. Even Archlinux didn’t get this much funding in one go.
The spirit of open-source is built on Kindness and Empathy. When a movement such as that is slowly hijacked by people who are ideologically opposed to kindness and empathy, then the kind and empathetic get deprived of a sense of place and belonging.
The main idea of open source is that code should be free (as in speech) so people can really own it, modify it, contribute and work on it together. So no, open source is not about Kindness and Empathy. I can accept your PR for my project and I don’t have to know anything about your values, opinions or gender. If you run into a bug in an app you’re using you can submit a fix without getting into the politics of the maintainer. Open source is a technical solution for a practical problem of locked down code.
What your talking about is another layer of ideology and politics built on top of the open source movement. It’s natural that people from communities and need some rules on interacting within them. In different groups different views become mainstream and different types of people join them. Then groups with different ideologies start fighting with each other. It’s all normal. And yes, right wing influencers always get more funding simply because rich people are mostly right wing and are willing to support them.
The problem here is that people now start to mix those two layers and try to govern the technical part using tools from the ideological part. If code is useful, if it does something we need (it’s a driver, it’s a protocol implementation, it’s offers some crucial functionality) it doesn’t really matter who wrote it. You can use it and it will not contaminate your computer with fascist/liberal ideology. If you want to engage will all this drama on political level you’re free to do it, just like you’re free to be a political activist in any other space. Just be careful not to mix politics with code. What is happening now is that people start rejecting code because they don’t like who wrote it. It makes no sense. It’s just code.
If you pay a nazi to bake you a pizza, you may have gotten a pizza you need to live, but you’ve also paid a nazi.
And when there are also 19 other pizzamakers, who aren’t nazis, then it’s not all that strange for people to think it’s a bad thing when you get your pizza from a nazi.
Do you pay for your open source code? I don’t.
Someone paid 12 million
And interestingly enough, the people with money all seem to go to the nazi pizzamaker
Even if you’re not giving money, your still giving support to a facist. You’re saying “I dont mind that they’re facist as long as I benefit from their work”. Just by using their software they’re being promoted over non-facist software.
When a facist gives out a free lunch, and people line up for the lunch, the facist is getting visibility for their facism.
Just by using their software they’re being promoted over non-facist software.
No, you think that because you’re mixing politics and engineering and you feel ‘yucky’ when using software written by someone you disagree with. I don’t.
If a fascist engineer designed a bridge and I walk on it am I supporting fascism? Am I giving visibility to it? Do I have to walk around and use a different bridge? You will probably say that yes, people using roads in New York support racism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses) but I disagree.
I can use software without giving money, likes, following its creator on social media, reposting his messages or otherwise promoting his ideas. His code running on my computer doesn’t provide any support to him, same as people driving under racist bridges don’t promote racism.
Thank you for writing this. I find this behavior incredibly counterproductive and immature. Additionally people are like “look at all of its security flaws!”. Great, now all of the fringe people who have joined Linux because it has gotten them to jump Microsoft/Apple ship and who might not understand the realm of software are just going to get hit with FUD.
If you’re going to keep up the crusade against it, wouldn’t it just be better to channel that energy into a fork and that way we can all build of its success?
I have used Omarchy and I loved it. DHH also acts like someone I might feel desirous of punching. It feels like something Microsoft would seed discontent and leverage our lizard brains’ need to shake our fists in the air.
Opposing racism and bigotry is not immature. I feel like you should learn kindness and empathy.
additionally, i’m not saying that opposing racism or bigotry is immature. I’m saying throwing out a successful open-source project because the owner is allegedly a racist/bigot (i admittedly know nothing or care to know anything about this DHH character) is counterproductive. Is the code racist/bigoted? If I make something using Omarchy as my OS, am I racist/bigoted? It sounds like that’s what you’re implying…
i find it interesting you think that i do not have kindness or empathy based on my stance. I’d be curious if you were to meet me in real life if you could pick me out of a hypothetical lineup.
This project has received money because it has drawn people to linux. I can still appreciate open-source code even if it’s written by an asshat.
On the other hand, I won’t touch an Apple product and I judge tech enthusiasts who do. I will still say they make impressive products, but I have a strong stance against proprietary code for the sake of profit.
Vaxry, the developer behind the Hyprland Wayland compositor (another Omacom-funded project), was banned in 2024 by Freedesktop.org’s Code of Conduct team over a pattern of the Hyprland Discord enabling harassment of trans community members, including an incident where moderators changed a trans user’s display name to strip their pronouns. Vaxry’s own public response framed the ban as ideological overreach by “social justice warriors,” while the Freedesktop side, recounted at LibreNews, describes over a year of private attempts to get him to address the toxicity before going public. Hyprland’s contributing guidelines now ban “political” speech too.
I’d recommend anyone actually accusing him of anything first read https://blog.vaxry.net/articles/2023-hyprlandsCommunity . IMO it’s very overblown and weakens similar accusations.
Also fun how he “funds” Hyprland but then kinda expects the project to not have paid features anymore? That seems predatory
It’s nice that people are finally starting to write about what a coke fuelled POS DHH is. People within the Ruby community have known this for years. the fact that he is where he is because of some truly horrible PHP is mind boggling.
the fact that he is where he is because of some truly horrible PHP
Could you please explain what you mean here, for those of us unfamiliar with the context?
Ffs i didn’t know 1password an futo were also part of this. My employer uses 1password for everything, guess i have one more thing to be annoying about now.
Damnit. I’m using the FUTO swipe keyboard straight from their fdroid repo.
You know what?
Fuck that. As an open source dev, my solidarity is needed, and it isn’t lesser than the convenience their keyboard gives. It may be a small gesture, but it’s better than ignoring my principles.
Heliboard and florid seems to be solid. Heliboard is even crowd sourcing training their swiping word prediction engine.
Great minds think alike! I ended up installing it last night. I need to fiddle with the font size of the keys to better accommodate my fingers, but it’s a good replacement so far.
Damnit.
I liked 1Password but I’ll be god damned if I’m giving them any more money.
12 million seems like a LOT for any distro
Yep. And it has absolutely nothing to do with the distro. This is just rich fascists throwing money at eachother. There are thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of other projects that are more deserving and in more need. This is entirely about who and not what.
This isn’t even a distro, just some configuration on Arch
He should funnel 11mil back upstream to Arch, we all know that won’t happen, but it should.
Also for those wanting to get into Hyprland try out: ML4W. Its the best dotfiles I’ve used and the creator seems fine, no controversy AFAIK.
Arch apparently doesn’t want his money. I don’t have any actual sources, just internet hearsay, but still, I can still very much understand not wanting to take his money.
The problem there is Hyprland itself, with vaxry not being much better than DHH
Idk much about vaxry, but that project has outgrown one person and is maintained / contributed by hundreds. Its also the best tiling wm for Wayland so far (IMO).
Happy to try others out eventually but for now its too good to skip.
Yes and because of the founder’s idiocy casual racism is OK on their discord server so I have some idea of where these contributors stand on the matter.
Not when your buddies are billionaires.
Gentoo does a wild amount of work on $12k per annum but I don’t think $12m is that crazy - if it’s more than you can spend then you can pass it on to your dependencies. We shouldn’t expect open source contributors to do everything as a volunteer effort because then it becomes a rich person pastime. What’s infuriating here is that this $12m goes to people who aren’t exactly doing anything worthwhile.
what’s infuriating here is that this $12m goes to people who aren’t exactly doing anything worthwhile.
Not to mention DHH is already a millionaire.
Everyday my longstanding hatred of DHH is proven correct. I never liked him or his ideas, and seeing his shitty-but-accepted ideas in full context did a lot to help me understand how fascism is more than just ideology: It’s world view, it’s practices, it’s lifestyle.
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That is not how it goes when millions of dollars are involved 🤦
But even if it was, not caring who you give money to is not is not a defence against supporting fascism.
How is corporations donating millions of dollars to a fascist not normalizing the ideology?
It’s not a foundation. It COULD HAVE been one but in typical coke fuelled ranting DHH fashion he blogged about how the money would go towards marketing thus, womp womp, no tax exempt foundation for you buddy.
Well, shit, I’d only heard of vaxry because we seem to share an opinion on D-Bus.
What are your dbus opinions
It simpliefeis and unifies things too much, which is nice for making things “Just Work” but not so nice for making things work well.
Same reason I went back to init from systemd.
I like a more modular and intentional apprtoach, even if it is less simple.
