You might’ve noticed Framework, the laptop manufacturer, embroiled in a controversy as of now. The Discord server is on lockdown because the volunteer moderation team has gone on hiatus, and the Framework forum post about the controversy has been gaining unsightly amounts of steam from people disappointed at actions taken by Framework.
Fair Warning: Long rant ahead.
Great article, and it gets to the heart of something I’ve felt is becoming more and more prominent in the Linux and Open Source Community, and really any community. And it’s something we simply can’t ignore.
That is that you can’t separate politics from life. It’s everywhere. The author points out that Framework’s mission is to encourage right to repair and responsible consumption by discouraging planned obsolescence.
While right to repair might be popular in both left and right wing circles, that is only because both sides want control over their devices and to distance themselves from Big Tech. But their views on regulation with regards to the environment and social equity/inclusion are as far apart as the general right left paradigm is as a whole.
To be blunt, you simply cannot have normal people work under the same tent as crypto fascists, transphobes, and general right wing grifters, no matter how significant their individual contributions might be.
I personally am tired of these sorts of controversies being brushed under the rug by tech influencers like BashBunni and Brodie Robertson who in their coverage of Omarchy did not broach this topic even just to say that there is a controversy at all. It’s cowardice at best, and right wing apologism at worst.
Yes, there are particularly brilliant software engineers that are also assholes. And yeah, without those assholes, we wouldn’t have the technologies we have today. The mistake is thinking that they are brilliant because they are assholes. Another mistake is thinking that holding onto one productive asshole is better than hanging onto the good will and contributions of many normal people that still provide worthwhile contributions.
To be very frank, fuck that. I refuse to believe in the false dichotomy that in order to create good software we have to put up with bigots. If anything, their attitudes end up holding themselves and their colleagues back. We shouldn’t be asking ourselves, “How much less productive would that person have been if they had wasted time/energy on being socially conscious and empathetic.” And instead have asked “How much more productive and better off we all would have been had they been a more empathetic and compassionate person.” Because we’re all worse off when a colleague is being a bigot, and it’s in all of our interests to call it out when we see it.
Preach. thank you for this ❤️
The author points out that Framework’s mission is to encourage right to repair and responsible consumption by discouraging planned obsolescence.
They’ve already abandoned this with the Framework desktop.
How did they do that?
It’s not repairable or upgradable, save for the SSD and power supply.
They didn’t. Homie is just mad they expanded into an area that didn’t actually need to revolutionized with repairability in mind. That’s not abandoning repairability in the slightest. Mayyyyybe they’re mad they’re selling a CPU with soldered RAM, but they tried to make it with swappable RAM and it turned out to be impossible from a physics perspective. Something about the timing, if I remember correctly. They’re really just selling that desktop because they were hyped on the CPU and thought it would make for a great enterprise workhorse. They threw it together crazy fast, too. It’s not like it took meaningful time away from their other projects. I would imagine a good chunk of their business customers have been asking for a desktop so they can source everything from them, but that’s pure speculation on my part.
they tried to make it with swappable RAM and it turned out to be impossible from a physics perspective
Not true. They could make it but with reduced memory bandwidth. They chose not to do it anyway.
I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying.
I just want people to ponder this: What happens when we ostracize people with bigoted beliefs from our communities? Does that mean we have given up on the idea that communities can change people? Does that mean our community is not responsible for helping people realize their bigotry?
I want to start this comment out by saying that I do agree that communities can change people, that if one is exposed to differing perspectives and belief systems, that one has the opportunity to change their outlook on the world. It’s definitely how I was able to get myself out of some very bad thought processes that were ingrained into me as a child. I would, however, like to grain-of-salt that to say that I was open to hearing about differing perspectives and belief systems.
Respectfully (to you and other leftists at least), as a disabled queer trans person, I am tired of the emotional labor it takes to justify why I should exist to people on the right. I agree it should be done to engage with as many people that are willing to take it in as possible. I have done it enough to know that there are times when you can try as hard as you can, but the person just won’t come over to your side of thought. I’m reminded of the saying “I can explain it for you, but I can’t understand it for you.”
Again, I don’t mean to direct any malice or misgiving towards you or anyone else engaging with this topic in good faith. I’m just tired of doing the work that other non-marginalized people should have been doing for years.
Thank you for your response. I hear you loud and clear.
The purpose of these communities isn’t to help people learn to not be assholes. A Framework community, for example, is a community centered around Framework’s products and ecosystems.
As far as responsibility, a community is built by its people, and it is not my responsibility to change someone’s views. I have no sympathy towards people who would harm or advocate/celebrate the harm of myself or anyone close to me. They can fuck off.
These views are harmful to communities because when acted on, they exclude entire groups from the community. They tear apart communities, turning it into a political “us vs them” rather than discussions about the original topic.
Nobody is saying people with these views can’t be members of the community, but that they are required to accept the presence of those they are prejudiced against in order to contrbute to it. But if they make the rules, they will forbid those they are prejudiced against from being members at all.
If someone’s actively interested in a discussion and wants to learn, then that’s one thing. But it’s still off topic for most communities.
Note that none of what I just said is specific to far-right views. It’s just most common with them.
I genuenly dont understand why a glorified set of dotfiles have recived such an enormous amount of donations and publicity. Not a good set of dotfiles mind you, in fact it looks like subpar compared to the many superior Hyprland dotfiles. Whats even more absurd is that people are saying “this will get people to use Linux”, yeah im sure this is what Linux needs another distro thats slightly different.
Those are the anti-woke crusaders, who think being decent to people gets in the way of literally everything. The creator, DHH, has many blog articles about great replacement theory and how Britain isn’t white enough anymore for his tastes.
Was sad to see Primagen put out a video praising Omarchy this week, but maybe he doesn’t know yet? Or maybe he does, I have no idea.
Primeagen has interviewed DHH at least twice over the past 2 years, in hour+ videos posted to his YouTube channel. Including one where DHH goes unprompted into a pro-natalism rant.
Primeagen also just spent a week with some other creators working on a video game, sponsored by Cursor and on Framework desktops running Omarchy.
He is either sympathetic or apathetic to these issues - certainly doesn’t seem to care about being decent to those not of his tribe.
DHH is a massive piece of shit. I keep seeing his stupid name popping back up recently and I wish he would go the fuck away. No community needs his toxic views.
it’s because of his Arch .dotfiles believe it or not. People are hailing it as the “second coming” of linux.
It’s not even good. It’s just scripts for some starter Arch rice, not a serious distro.
good thing is most of the rails community think the same thing and actively distance themselves from him
Yeah, I’ve been keeping track of that one and they are trying to get him removed from any sort of leadership role over the community.
He’s been a dirt bag for as far back as I can remember.
They can have a big tent without making it a Nazi bar, but still choose to do so. They deserve the consequences of that decision until they kick the fascists out of their tent.
For fucks sake. A big tent is nice and all, but I am not entering any tent that has fucking fascists in it.
Very happy with my Framework 13. I hope I can keep recommending it to people without feeling it’s at odds with my values.
It’s not like other producers are realistically better, but I kinda expect Framework to be good.
the problem with framework is that their products are quite a bit worse than their competitors (outside of repairability, ofc)
you buy their stuff because you want to support them and their values
…so what happens when their values aren’t worth supporting anymore?
there are other repairable laptop manufacturers out there, not as hype-y as framework for sure but still repairable, like System76, Tuxedo, Slimbook, etc.
the worst part of framework’s response is their “oh we partner with anybody we don’t see politics”; which is literally just the “if there’s a nazi at the table and 10 other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with 11 nazis”
If they want to support a Nazi, they clearly do not want my money. No problem.
Pretty good post about the situation. I would just add a few thing :
The harasement from the hyperland project got so bad they are banned from FreeDesktop.org and I’ve seen how many talented people gave up on working on the Linux ecosystem because of that.
Right to repair does not match well with right wing politics (TL;DR AuthRight need control and in lib-right absolute capitalism having reparable stuff is a surefire to kill your company ) but it’s a murky and difficult subject so I understand why it’s not mentioned.
Also of note, framework didn’t advertise thoose project on fedi/mastodon so this seems like they had known from the start a backlash would occur.
The harasement from the hyperland project got so bad they are banned from FreeDesktop.org and I’ve seen how many talented people gave up on working on the Linux ecosystem because of that.
Just to clarify, you mean the harassment alienated contributions, not the freedesktop ban, right?
I understand why Framework would support Hyprland as it is warts and all because, I believe, it’s one of the most famous/successful projects in its domain. But Omarchy? That shit is new and unproven, there are much better distros to support.
I think there’s some sort of a west coast trend towards immutable distros. Bazzite has the same kind of buzz. Haven’t really met anyone that uses these distros around me, though.
If I had a better brain I’d be writing like Arya here. Loved the little references to DC++ and Fallout: New Vegas.
Also, it’s sad it’s only now I realize what kind of guy DHH is. I’ve seen him a few times talking with Primeagen, so that was the extent of my knowledge about him up until now. And sad that Brodie Robertson is helping sanewash him, although I think Brodie is pretty oblivious when it comes to politics.
the comment section for Brodie’s Omarchy video weren’t much better to the point I honestly started thinking “did DHH pay a PR firm or something?” because you’ll notice the SAME comments spread across several videos regarding Omarchy.
Welp, time for me to find a different laptop to purchase. My old HP went out after nearly 10 years of use (thank you, Linux) due to motherboard failure (source: I work in tech support and laptop repair, plus I took it to Best Buy for a second opinion). I’m using a loaner laptop from a friend as an in-between, and while it’s not a bad laptop itself, I would like to get something, well, new. Plus I’m due for a stipend from work, so I’ll definitely have the money for it.
I’ve always heard that Framework is a good laptop, and have even recommended it to someone at work, but now I’m not so sure. As for me personally, I’ll have to hunt down a new laptop to purchase, as I definitely don’t want to support someone who follows the “if you have 10 people who sit with 1 Nazi” saying. I did get some recommendations from a Best Buy worker, but then they all come with Windows, and while I do have a guide on how to make Windows more privacy-friendly (and I can always just install WSL), I was looking forward to keeping Linux as my daily driver (as I do on my desktop).
Goddammit, Framework!
Vaxry is still pretty ableist, I think he’s just better at hiding it now. https://mastodon.social/@acidiclight/115348200226656321
Insted of banning abrasive people from forums, we could flag them and use AI as a filter on everything they say in that forum. In a similar vein of how Overwatch dealt with trolls in their ingame chat. If you say “too easy” your message is replaced with something less abrasive. Take away their power to be assholes for no reason. Make it a little badge “I’m an asshole”.
The problem comes from people responding to them, in communities that are text-first. You can flag a person as a troll… but unless you ban them, then eventually the discussions spill over.
Overwatch doesn’t have that same issue, because text is not at its core; you can mute people, and keep playing the game. Game-disrupting players though, still get banned.
