Six days ago, upgradeable laptop maker Framework tried to convince its fractious user community to live in a “big tent” after a Debian developer objected to the company’s sponsorship of Hyprland and its social media promotion of Omarchy, with both projects associated with politically polarizing viewpoints.
Antoine Beaupré, aka anarcat, demanded that Framework clarify its political position with regard to these two projects.
Hyprland, a Wayland compositor, is led by a “toxic and hateful community,” Beaupré observed, and Omarchy, a Linux distribution, comes from David Heinemeier Hansson (aka DHH), a controversial figure in the Ruby and Linux communities.
Kindof amusing to see people call “purity testing” on people who object to someone who’s quoted as being upset by checks notes a lack racial or ethnic purity.
[Sarcasm] C’mon everyone, can’t we just get along and hold hands with racists and other people who consider us subhuman? As long as what they’re doing doesn’t bother me personally you’re all overreacting and fragmenting this
nazi barcommunity!People here complaining about purity testing even though really it’s just poison testing.
The standard isn’t even if it’s pure in ideology it’s to test is not poisonous.
being antifascist could only ever be “polarizing” if the person getting offended is an anti-antifascist aka a Nazi
I think it depends very much on what you think is fascism.
Lemmy users sometimes think using harch language is “fascism” because they are young and dont know what real fascism was like.
That being said, I havent read about what the Hyprland devs have been saying or doing, so sure, maybe they are bad people. I will go read about it now.
Edit: I looked into it and its not fascism, as usual. It seems to be the usual stuff that is being called fascism when its not. Its all about how they moderate their forum and how they talk to people there. This is not fascism. Treating people rudely is not fascism. Making bad jokes is not fascism either.
They may be dousches but we wont have another Stalin on our hands from this direction, dont worry. :)
I love how they always portray projects like this as “politically polarizing”. You look inside and it’s always just plain old not-polarizing misogyny. Really shows where this “news” outlets stand.
The media has been complicit in all of this by sanewashing all of the insane shit that’s constantly happening.
The weird thing for me is the financial support coming from Framework to Hyprland. It would be one thing if Framework was working with Hyprland to test compatibility and functionality on their machines and do specialized bug testing. They could kind of justify that from a purely technical stance.
But the fact that they picked a very niche project for no apparent reason to support with a significant monthly financial contribution is so strange. There are numerous other niche distros/projects that aren’t mired in controversy that Framework could have worked with, (Alpine, Void, ElementaryOS, etc.) so why Hyprland/Omarchy?
Very disappointed. I’ve been pushing Framework computers very strongly for friends and family over the last year, plus I’ve been planning on getting one to replace my aging Thinkpad. Now I am going to hold off until the dust settles on this.
Supporting Hyprland definitely looks like a mistake, they weren’t aware of what went on around there.
They probably should have gone with supporting Niri and maybe Cosmic instead.
I agree, but then why would they not retracted their support? If it really was an honest mistake and they weren’t aware of the situation, I would think they would apologize, explain that they didn’t know, pull their support, and issue a statement about the kinds of values they want to promote in the FOSS world.
But instead, they have doubled down, the CEO himself. It’s very strange and concerning.
Omarchy uses Hyprland, so I guess they started by promoting Omarchy and maybe DHH asked them to sponsor Hyprland
It was a yellow flag when Framework invested heavily into an affordable non-repairable, non-upgradable desktop designed for AI developers. “Let them make money,” they said, as Framework positioned itself as a Trojan Horse to the ubiquitization of harmful AI.
This was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. I was saving up for a Framework 16, but I’ll just stick with my Thinkpad and get the next Steam Deck for gaming. It’s really a shame that such an important company would support transphobia and white supremacy, not just rhetorically but financially, as Hyperland gets ₤600 a month from them and DHH gets ₤24,000 via Rails.
I know this will be a controversial take since Framework is so beloved, but that is just how I personally will choose to spend my money.
I agree with your conclusion and I abhor Framework promoting either of these two projects.
But the APU in the desktop has, I suspect, a real reason for having nonreplaceable RAM. If I understand correctly, they can’t achieve 8000 mt/s memory speed or the wider memory bus with replaceable RAM. And since that memory is shared with the GPU, that speed becomes important for gaming or other GPU tasks. Hence why 6400 mt/s seems to be the max memory speed for a lot of the zen5 desktop chips, at least in prebuilts
I have that chip in my laptop (the “AI” Max Pro 395+) and I don’t ever use it for LLM shit. It’s a very performant and efficient CPU, and shockingly good for gaming too.
So even tho I hate the “ai” branding it’s actually a very very good CPU and GPU
Framework tried to design a version that worked with SODIMM with AMD but the performance was seriously hampered, and the plan was dropped.
I have a similar experience. I was saving up for a framework 13 for a general more ethical option, but that AI mini PC was extremely disappointing and got me more radicalized into free (libre) software as a consequence. Could you clarify the white supremacy and transphobia? I usually concern myself with strictly free software, so I’m unaware of such controversies.
Hyprland is the project associated with Transphobia. To put it delicately, the original developer was so cringe to the point that others didn’t want to work on the project.
DHH is the developer who is associated with White Supremacy, as he started making overtly white suprematist comments on social media.
I don’t buy from fascist supporters if I can help it. Screw Framework
I’m amazed that they haven’t backtracked this yet. They’re just cool losing all those customers.
idk, looking at twitter, there seems to be a pretty good number of fascist techbros who are congratulating framework on this
i guess framework doesn’t mind the change in audience…
I mean, its twitter. Its almost entirely fascist tech bros there.
Bots pretending to be tech bros*
Twitter is basically millions of Groks in a trenchcoat at this point.
I don’t believe any kind of analysis that depends on measuring sentiment on social media given that it’s trivially easy to run hundreds or thousands of accounts on a 5 year old graphics card and some vibe coding.
Theyre not gonna, look at all the comments itt that are ok with giving money to transphobes
It irks me to no end that both here and in the framework community forum people will try to downplay just how awful DHH and their ilk are.
They’ll never say that they don’t mind supporting someone who’s transphobic, or a nationalist, or a racist. Instead they’ll just say that you need to separate the art from the artist, or that you’re just engaging in “purity tests” or whatever other bullshit reason they can throw to absolve themselves from supporting objectively shitty people.
In the current political environment, it’s profitable to have right-wing extremists alignments and they’re aren’t sigh, or even happy to be part of it.
If the sales fall, there would have been or will be a “southpark-sorry.gif”
Funny how that just keeps on happening?! Why can’t we have left-wing extremism ever be profitable 😤
Because if you’re out there grifting people for monetary gain, you’re not really a leftist.
Because left wing extremism is anti-capitalist.
Left-wing podcasts churn huge amounts of money, Chapo Trapo House, Cool Zone Media etc… Individuals like Ibrahim X Kendi and the BLM project grafted away millions of dollars to buy mansions and luxury office space with do-nothing employees.
Left-wing has no issue making money. Rubes come in all political affiliations.
None of those are extremist though 😔
Tech companies and preventable controversies: name a more iconic duo.
This definitely had a negative impact on my view of framework, can’t say I’d buy from them again.
Same. Considering sending an email to tell them this.
Already have, along with my concerns about the outsized money going to essentially DHH events.
Might even sell my FW, I don’t think I want to be associated with the brand at all.
Which brands are acceptable to be associated with?
(I don’t own one, and I’m not familiar with what other brands are available these days.)
its because tech companies are generally so out if touch with their userbase
TL;DR for just updates since the initial story: Basically say that they believe Hyprland cleaned up after having an initial problem and totally ignores all the stuff about DHH, despite that seeming to be the biggest problem people had with what they’ve been doing.
I’ll admit I’m not up to date on the hyprland/vaxry lore – but I don’t understand the level of outrage based on this article…
I’m also not sure why the sponsorship of a software project is necessarily being treated as a 100% endorsement of both the maintainers and their alleged views.
I’m also not sure if infighting and purity testing will help the movement(s) right now. Once it’s the norm, sure, but it’s still a relatively fringe movement within the industry.
Edit (2025-10-15@20:14): At the time of writing my comment, I was both unaware (and uninformed) on the DHH side of this topic. While I still think the level of outrage is maybe a melodramatic, the push back seems more warranted than it initially seemed to me. I still don’t know much about DHH beyond Rails (and even then, not much); but from what I’ve seen since my comment, the response is more understandable.
You’re right, we should let it build up fascist momentum and then change it from within later
if I dip a pH strip in my drinking water and it indicates my water is acidic, am I not entitled to stop drinking from that source because it failed my purity test?
Let’s not confuse “entitled” with “justified”. Of course you are legally entitled to boycott whatever you want, nobody seems to question that. The issue is whether or not you can be legitimately criticism for it.
Suppose that you had 20 glasses, you tested 4 of them and found that 2 were “too acidic”. Are you then justified in drinking the other 18 glasses?
The reality is that you have probably personally supported people who are far more egregious than the subjects here. Abusers, murderers, rapists, etc… Is your support of them an endorsement of their actions? Is your/societies providing medical care to these people an endorsement of their actions?
No. We can parse between what actions we endorse and what actions we don’t, because we are rational beings. Or rather some of us are.
it just sounds like you’re bending over backwards to make trans and racialized people drink polluted water. and you’re trying to convince the rest of us that the water is just fine actually because you have a reverse osmosis system installed (being cis or white)
No, I pointing out that the filters don’t actually work.
Transphobic and racist behaviour isn’t going to disappear just because you boycott it.
The consequences of bigotry aren’t reading mean tweets, it’s going to a job interview and having the prospective employer think “eww… I don’t like this candidate”. Boycotting is not going to fix that, because your purity test can’t even detect it.
I don’t purity test people because the reality is that most/all people have some harmful notions, it’s not productive or good for anyone to ostracize them so long as we can promote the good they do, and mitigate the harm.
- where the fuck did you see me advocate for a boycott? you just made that up.
Transphobic and racist behaviour isn’t going to disappear just because you boycott it.
- this is the only point I can agree on with apologists such as yourself. none of us have to boycott Nazis when shooting them is much more cheap and effective
Shunning/shaming is a type of social boycott. You spent the entire discussion describing boycotting without using the term.
But it’s nice to see that you object to boycotting and instead plan to murder people.
One thing I can take solace in is the fact that extremists tend to be too stupid, lazy and drug-addicted to even do the most basic revolutionary activities.
One thing I can take solace in is the fact that extremists tend to be too stupid, lazy and drug-addicted to even do the most basic revolutionary activities.
if we’re doing criticisms now, you’re failing to do the most basic of revolutionary activities by deep-throating the Aryan boot instead of simply polishing it like a normal quisling should
But it’s nice to see that you object to boycotting and instead plan to murder people.
I would never ever advocate for murdering people because Nazis aren’t considered people. they decided to abandon their right to life by advocating for taking mine away
Most of the discourse was about Omarchy/DHH, not just Hyprland, though that was a part of it. It is not purity testing to block people who don’t work well with others or are hateful like DHH from a community. If you want to bring people who want us dead into a community then everyone else is going to leave
The main problem is
- Np contributed to and glasses Omarchy
- People wonder why DHH was sponsored with hardware
- Generic response about “big tent” ideology to include everyone - including racists and transphobes like DHH
- People are upset because they don’t want to be in a Nazi Bar
- NP makes twitter post about how people want to ascribe values to him he doesn’t hold, that he’s pro immigrant and pro lgbt
- Np responds in forum thread that they reviewed hyprland and determined that theyd improved their moderation and were ok to sponsor (monetarily)
- Framework responds they’ll make a blog post clarifying their sponsorships
- Blog post coincidentally excludes omarchy
- People question it and basically just get a “we will get that updated” response
- I still dont see it there
You cant claim to be pro immigrant and pro lgbt when you actively invite white supremacists and transphobes into the community and then try to avoid responsibility for that by not commenting or not retracting support or not clarifying how you’d avoid it going forward
The project may not be political (it is) but the people who use and support the project definitely are. If you want to kick out the community by inviting Nazis, then all that will be left once those people leave will be nazis. And if you knowingly collaborate with Nazis, you are a nazi.
The main problem is […]
I’ll admit, I only vaguely know of DHH by name and Rails, vaguely remember the Omarchy announcement, and that’s about it. I seem to recall Prime referencing DHH’s controversial opinions, but I can’t say I’ve gone any deeper than that.
If the discourse really is primarily focused on DHH/Omarchy, then I guess I just misunderstood this post/title & the article…or just don’t have the full context regardless.
I still dont see it there
Because the “update” to the blog post was:
Note that this list does not include products sent for marketing use or R&D use
As a way to not talk about DHH/Omarchy directly, or the promotion they were doing (which was many times more than anything else they were talking about).
Þe comments devolved into flamewars, but it boils down to: if you take money I spend wiþ you and give it to people who want to oppress me, I’m going to stop buying your product.
Þe issue isn’t Framework using Hyprland or Omarchy; it’s þat þey’re giving computers and money - material support - and moral support by talking þose projects up in social media (especially Omarchy).
Þere’s a big difference between using FOSS led by a politically controversial figure, and sending the figure money. Especially when þat money derives from customers said figure openly claims to want to oppress.
Yeah, sometimes its not practical avoiding certain projects (see fucking JavaScript), but promoting and funding is a major barrier and red flag…
Offtopic, but whats up with the cyrilic looking character you are using? Is it to fuck with bots or something else entirely?
It’s the thorn character
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter)
Bonus: In printing, the Y character was often used as a stand in instead of creating a dedicated thorn printing plate. So places named ‘Ye Old Shoppe’ the ‘Ye’ is actually ‘The’
Þis is one of my favorite TIL for þis past year, and it’s all þanks to thorn!
If I’m mot mistaken, it’s a cool character English USED to have for the “th” sound. Would be neat if it came back, if that’s the goal 👀
Using thorn in English is a pathetic bid to appear smart.
I dunno, personally I þink it’s just fun to use. :3
– Frost
Weird way to say that you haven’t heard of yinglets.
If we deleted everything written by insufficiently pure developers, we wouldn’t have a Linux desktop. Especially if we count the ones that were smart enough to not bring up anything political in public.
Not a fan of DHH, but then you delete Rails then there’s no GitHub, GitLab, Mastodon, and many many other things given how popular Rails is, and that’s just that one guy.
If you include all the sketchy stuff that happens in the supply chain mining the minerals, processing, assembly all the way up to the final computer product, you just can’t morally justify supporting any manufacturer either.
This really doesn’t do anything useful other than feeling good to not support one of those guys. If anything it just adds extra political drama that feeds into a much bigger worldwide division problem.
The developers of those projects would have just chosen a different language if Rails never existed.
The people who pretend that they can keep politics out of their life are always the people who are benefiting from the current political system. Nobody else in the world is so ignorant.
Definitely, but there’s a middle ground between “let’s pretend politics doesn’t exist”, and “you must 100% agree with my views or I’ll cancel you”.
Sure, but maybe that middle ground is pretty far from supporting people who believe things like the problem with Britain is that it is no longer sufficiently white and active steps should be taken to fix this?
@Max_P @stewie410 This is just wrong. Taking a stand against things like this causes change for the better in the long run. Rails will survive without DHH, like Linux survived without Reiserfs and MySQL survived after Larry Ellison. There may be some pain involved, but we owe it to ourselves to tread the better path, and make bad people just socially unacceptable.
As I added in another comment, I misunderstood the DHH element of the discourse as I, admittedly, don’t know much of anything about him – I’ve heard some references here and there, but that’s about it.
Taking a stand against things like this causes change for the better in the long run.
That’s also fine, and I generally agree. My concern basically boils down to killing momentum by sinking a company with (probably?) sane views on right-to-repair & libre as topics.
If the goal of a boycott is to starve the company until it goes under, because they made a move we don’t like – then that I don’t really like in this context. If the goal is to force their hand towards at least transparency, or maybe force NP to step down; then I’d support that.
See also: javascript and Eich
Ah, to live in a world without JavaScript and weird, Nazi crypto dipshits 🥰
Here‘s my take as a relatively tech savvy guy with no introspective into the Linux scene and its political affiliation: I’ll buy framework products because of the repairability and upgradability as long as I can run whatever I want on it.
Most consumers that are sustainability minded (like myself) have no clue what hyprland or omarchy is.
I’m sure it’s a big deal within a small niche but the average consumer won’t know or care.
I would agree if they weren’t FUNDING Nazis. That’s coming out of the cost of your laptop buddy
But now that you are aware but you choose to bury your head in the sand. Okay…
We already know people like you already made up your mind. What’s the point of this comment? Was this post going to stop you?
To be honest i just read some abbreviations and terms i dont understand and I really do not have the time to go down the rabbit hole.
I just wanted to add a viewpoint to the discussion that the potential commercial target group larger is than the bubble in which some of the people here seem to be. I find this legitimate.
Framework has directly and indirectly supported devs that are far right, one much more hard right than the other, but both are far right.
The direct is money. Indirect is marketing.
You don’t really need to dig into anything here, those two sentences sums up the entire situation.
Thanks for the clarification. In the face of modern debates there is only black and white - if you’re not like us, surely you’re like them. I don’t find it cool that they support right ideologies.
I’m against it and I will keep it in mind for future consideration, but supporting the right surely is not the extent of the things they have done or what they are actively doing.
Where there’s light, there’s shadow and the message for right to repair and their exemplary designs for repairability also has an impact on society as a whole.
I can find it shitty that they support people who I disagree with ideologically and great that they make repairable and sustainable products.
I absolutely agree that its great that they support the right to repair. That is, to me, what makes the response here so disappointing.
I personally do not want my money to feed the far right, and the simple fact is, that is where a portion of framework purchasing is going. These are not projects where there is a person or two within a large group who are far right, but projects where they are the project fundamentally. What throws me as well is the choice of Hyprland (financially) and Omarchy (marketing - heavy, heavy marketing). Even more odd, DHH again with Rails World with an alarming amount of money - five times what they gave to the Linux Foundation, double what they gave to Gnome, 2.5 times what they gave to the Linux Vendor Firmware Service, 50 times what they gave to the Open Hardware Summit, 12 times what they gave to KDE Akademy and DebConf…
Writing that out makes it feel even weirder. Rails World. How in the hell does Rails World even fit in with what Framework does?
It isn’t just supporting a few shitty people in a mix of other things, its far outsized support.
Oh, I guess I’ll look into it then. Thank you for writing it up!
https://frame.work/blog/framework-sponsorships
This is the blog post where you’ll see the money. DHH is Omarchy and Rails, Vaxry is Hyprland. Hyprland got, functionally, a pittance, and Vaxry (while on the right) I don’t personally see as being anywhere near as terrible as DHH.
If you want to know about DHH, rather than read articles, you can look at his blog directly. - https://world.hey.com/dhh. Scan the titles of posts and you’ll find his positions pretty quickly, and you can read the posts themselves where he references the white replacement conspiracy theory and more.
literally how fascists make their money
Does anybody have a source of the direct sponsorship to Obarchy. All I found was a couple of Twitter posts.
I detailed it out in comments elsewhere, but Omarchy was not directly financially supported. It did receive outsized promotion (not just a few twitter posts), but the real telling part is in events.
Rails World (where DHH was the keynote speaker) received more than DebConf, KDE Akademy, Open Source Hardware Summit, the Linux Foundation, and the Linux Vendor Firmware Service combined.
For a hardware company, thats kinda weird. Hackaday Supercon and Hack Club were the only ones to receive more than RailsWorld. Hackaday makes clear sense, and I would say Hack Club does as well. Rails World though? How?
And one more bit to note - nrp has acknowledged that FW provided DHH with equipment, but oddly, that was left off the list, despite listing others such as 1 unit to Nixcon, 3 units to LabsCon, and 2 to RISC-V International.
Looks like they didn’t sponsor Omarchy, but they did promote it on their twitter a couple of times: https://x.com/FrameworkPuter/status/1960029405067313546
