The answer is no. Framework is not putting money into far right causes. They are paying for open source software.
The politics of some of the contributors is questionable. But it's not illegal to have bad opinions and exercise free speech. And it's certainly not Frameworks job to morally vet every person they interact with.
I do not need to know about the political opinions of the people who grow my food, or change my tires, or build my tools. And I am getting growing tired of intersectional witch hunts, especially when we're getting to so many layers of abstraction.
Agreed. "Vetting" is real, painstaking work and online mobs are atrocious at it. They project, fabulate, distort and lie to stir up a moment's self-righteous anger, regardless of actual, grounded truth.
This is obviously true on the Right, but I've learned it's also true on the Left. People scream "1 nazi in your bar means you're a nazi" and yet Drew Devault remains an influential progressive, despite a history of lolicon/CP.
I’ve been eying for the bubblegum framework 12 for a bit now and almost pulled the trigger. Frameworks political stance of “hardware should be maintainable and replaceable” really resonated with me and I was excited to support them with my money.
This is not it though - “Big Tent” means nothing when you’re supporting people who directly call for “Britain to be white again” and use slurs against minorities. It creates a gross space where people (like someone earlier in that thread) feel empowered to outright call for my existence to be invalidated.
This literally happened a few days ago on RetroAcheivements & they handled it well. I really hope framework come out with a response to all this.
I want to support them. I actually bought their ai desktop with unified memory ( DOA and can't do RMA cuz they are out of stock...so returned it ). Anyway, my point is: we should be focusing on tech and whether it works for us not some moral alignment. At best, it is a distraction.
edit: And for the record, I know nothing about either party of this fake controversy AND have no intention of learning it. It does not matter since I just want to get hardware that works for my use case.
While it can certainly be difficult for anyone to be aware of intra-community drama (especially if it's in semi-transient media like Discord), the moment someone makes you aware of deeply problematic issues is the moment when you have to make a choice how to respond.
The fact that framework leadership responded to this by effectively downplaying the issues raised in the OP shows me that they are deeply misguided. Very disappointing.
When you run a business, you can’t realistically perform background checks on every partner or contributor. Many people will have said or believed evil things. If a company starts politically vetting everyone it interacts with, it risks alienating large parts of society and undermining its mission. The best thing you can do is have dialogue with those people; not cancel them.
It also seems like some of the criticism here reflects a very local Canadian political outlook being applied globally. That rarely works because the world’s values and politics differ widely, and enforcing one region’s standards everywhere just drives division and more polarization.
For instance, even within Canada, provinces have very different approaches to religion and immigration, and not all of them align neatly with international norms. These are complex issues, not simple moral tests. Quebec has restrictions on religious symbols in the public sector targetting muslims, prayer in public targeting muslims, and limits on legal immigration(you guessed it, targetting muslims). So it’s hard to take moral absolutism seriously when local politics themselves are complicated.
DHH's public views do overlap with Reform UK’s platform, which (if you believe polls) has substantial voter support right now. Whether one agrees or not, that makes them part of mainstream democratic debate, not fringe extremism. With the recent exodus of MPs from Conservatives to Reform, I would be shocked if they dont win.
I think Framework’s response handled this great. Focusing on open collaboration rather than ideological purity tests.
> When you run a business, you can’t realistically perform background checks on every partner or contributor
You can, and that depends on whether you want to or not. No one forces you to run a business. You're not absolved of the chore of having a look at your supply chain just because you're disinterested in it
One shouldn't sponsor because of how they see the world today. They should sponsor because of how they want the world to be tomorrow.
edit: And I'm pretty sure a minutely modified distro doesn't need this amount of donations at this point. It is not having a positive effect on the ecosystem to have so many donations to the most downstream project. All I can feel about this is, at its best, its buying attention through DHH's pre-existing influence. This does not seem to be a great thing to buy at this point.
What timing I was going to install Omarchy this weekend. I know very little about DHH so will have to do more research. My main concern is that if DHH is some kind of far right psycho how much of his beliefs will make it into the software he's building? Sure I can comb through the repo before installing but will I do that on every update? That's my main concern. However, I encourage everyone to DYOR before automatically jumping to conclusions.
It’s time we start ignoring the lunacy from the fringes of society. Nothing good comes from indulging the psychopathic lust for control on display from these types of people.
You're also free to mischaracterize people and organizations based on your own perspectives and then act on those mischaracterizations, just like others are free to mischaracterize you and act on those mischaracterizations. That's the beauty of living in a free society; no one has to agree with you.
It is a false statement to claim that they are supporting Nazis.
Did you take exception to the company prior to this controversy? After all, they use manufacturing plants in a country which blends far right and far left political ideas concepts quite openly.
A tolerant society cannot tolerate intolerance, lest it gets destroyed by it.
In other words: the far right and fascists are an existential threath to our current society and cannot be tolerated, no matter what.
We should call them out and fight them all the time, everywhere, for our childrens future, to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
A tolerant society cannot tolerate intolerance, lest it gets destroyed by it. In other words: the far left and maoists are an existential threath to our current society and cannot be tolerated, no matter what. We should call them out and fight them all the time, everywhere, for our childrens future, to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
Oh man... Technology has always been a refuge from politics for me. I know this is a childish view of the world, but still... Today the nerdiest of things are still filled with politics. Rust, nix, open source hardware... there is nowhere to "hide".
Everything is political, especially something like the open source world (explicitly). Trying to hide from politics is just naivety and gives space to bad actors.
I regret to inform you that one of the largest contributors to the sheer magnitude of the Holocaust was a set of mainframe machines purchased from and continually maintained by IBM.
Technology is a force multiplier just like weapons are, and as such, it can never be extracted from politics.
It can, however, be really difficult to be aware of all the dirty laundry companies have, and cross-company deals like TFA deals with only make that harder. I definitely have a lot of sympathy for those who (admittedly like myself) don't spend their time investigating what every company in their life does behind the curtain.
Even once you know a particular company does something shady, it can be difficult (if not impossible) to find alternatives due to the massive consolidation of markets we've seen in past decades. Or, just as bad - you do have several options, but all of them engage in bad behavior, such that there's still not an obviously good option.
Normally, I'd expect governments to tamp down on this, but, well, even many western countries' governments are bribed to the gills explicitly not to, and I don't see that getting any better in my lifetime.
Politics is just the term to design how groups of people function, so as long as you will interact with other people in any way, you will do politics.
Everything is political. The way you dress, where you work, who are your friends, what you buy. Especially what you buy, maybe most of all in this society.
But also, more recently, there are very loud voices labeling everything left of "far right" as "extreme radical leftist".
And, yeah, I'm with your second paragraph. I think much of the country thinks that illegal immigration is a problem, and also thinks that Trump's enforcement of it has been unreasonably brutal and cruel. And a bunch of them think that trans people don't belong on womens' sports teams and that kids shouldn't transition, and also think that trans people don't deserve to be beaten and killed for being trans. And a bunch of them think that wealth inequality is a real problem, and also are deeply skeptical of the proposed solutions. And so on.
Many people are not really sold on the entirety of either party's platform. Unfortunately, all they get to do is vote every two years. One bit of feedback every two years. So Trump thinks he's got a mandate for everything he wants to do, but what he really has is a vote that the country wasn't happy with the way things were going under Biden.
(Now, true, there are also lots of people who are completely bought in to one side or the other. But since such people tend to be more vocal than the not-really-sold-on-either-side types, it makes it easy to overestimate how many people are zealots.
> I have yet to see evidence DHH is a far-right racist
You haven't seen that because there is none.
But the right left will label anybody that has even a slight disagreement as far right.
Nowadays a bunch of things (not all of them, of course) labeled as far right are perfectly fine, so much so that it's the stuff that democrats from 15-20 years ago would have advocated for.
Today Nazi == "Someone I don't like." It's overused so much it literally has no meaning.
DHH's only sin was creating Ruby on Rails, not his politics (same with Brendan Eich who I hope one day apologies to the world for inventing JavaScript).
Most reasonable people left Hackernews a long time ago when they banned the balance. Almost all that's left on here is echo-chamber.
[+] [-] legitster|5 months ago|reply
The politics of some of the contributors is questionable. But it's not illegal to have bad opinions and exercise free speech. And it's certainly not Frameworks job to morally vet every person they interact with.
I do not need to know about the political opinions of the people who grow my food, or change my tires, or build my tools. And I am getting growing tired of intersectional witch hunts, especially when we're getting to so many layers of abstraction.
[+] [-] throw4f563e3|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] jauntywundrkind|5 months ago|reply
I really don't think it's possible to entirely cleanly separate the art from the artist.
[+] [-] nikhotmsk|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] hitekker|5 months ago|reply
This is obviously true on the Right, but I've learned it's also true on the Left. People scream "1 nazi in your bar means you're a nazi" and yet Drew Devault remains an influential progressive, despite a history of lolicon/CP.
[+] [-] pfych|5 months ago|reply
This is not it though - “Big Tent” means nothing when you’re supporting people who directly call for “Britain to be white again” and use slurs against minorities. It creates a gross space where people (like someone earlier in that thread) feel empowered to outright call for my existence to be invalidated.
This literally happened a few days ago on RetroAcheivements & they handled it well. I really hope framework come out with a response to all this.
[+] [-] A4ET8a8uTh0_v2|5 months ago|reply
edit: And for the record, I know nothing about either party of this fake controversy AND have no intention of learning it. It does not matter since I just want to get hardware that works for my use case.
[+] [-] airhangerf15|5 months ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] solstice|5 months ago|reply
The fact that framework leadership responded to this by effectively downplaying the issues raised in the OP shows me that they are deeply misguided. Very disappointing.
[+] [-] znpy|5 months ago|reply
Also, depending on your own sensibility, anything can be extremist far right or extremist far left.
So yeah... Cut the framework people some slack.
[+] [-] incomingpain|5 months ago|reply
It also seems like some of the criticism here reflects a very local Canadian political outlook being applied globally. That rarely works because the world’s values and politics differ widely, and enforcing one region’s standards everywhere just drives division and more polarization.
For instance, even within Canada, provinces have very different approaches to religion and immigration, and not all of them align neatly with international norms. These are complex issues, not simple moral tests. Quebec has restrictions on religious symbols in the public sector targetting muslims, prayer in public targeting muslims, and limits on legal immigration(you guessed it, targetting muslims). So it’s hard to take moral absolutism seriously when local politics themselves are complicated.
DHH's public views do overlap with Reform UK’s platform, which (if you believe polls) has substantial voter support right now. Whether one agrees or not, that makes them part of mainstream democratic debate, not fringe extremism. With the recent exodus of MPs from Conservatives to Reform, I would be shocked if they dont win.
I think Framework’s response handled this great. Focusing on open collaboration rather than ideological purity tests.
[+] [-] rakoo|5 months ago|reply
You can, and that depends on whether you want to or not. No one forces you to run a business. You're not absolved of the chore of having a look at your supply chain just because you're disinterested in it
[+] [-] its-summertime|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] M4rkJW|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] its-summertime|5 months ago|reply
edit: And I'm pretty sure a minutely modified distro doesn't need this amount of donations at this point. It is not having a positive effect on the ecosystem to have so many donations to the most downstream project. All I can feel about this is, at its best, its buying attention through DHH's pre-existing influence. This does not seem to be a great thing to buy at this point.
[+] [-] robbbed|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] grimblee|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] timeon|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] bbg2401|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] freetonik|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] xqcgrek2|5 months ago|reply
Just make sure your favorite employer's IT department is aware of this before they make a purchase order.
[+] [-] veeti|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] nathanaldensr|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] bbg2401|5 months ago|reply
Did you take exception to the company prior to this controversy? After all, they use manufacturing plants in a country which blends far right and far left political ideas concepts quite openly.
[+] [-] snapplebobapple|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] grimblee|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] throwawaypath|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] freetonik|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] bo0tzz|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] fsflover|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] atmavatar|5 months ago|reply
Technology is a force multiplier just like weapons are, and as such, it can never be extracted from politics.
It can, however, be really difficult to be aware of all the dirty laundry companies have, and cross-company deals like TFA deals with only make that harder. I definitely have a lot of sympathy for those who (admittedly like myself) don't spend their time investigating what every company in their life does behind the curtain.
Even once you know a particular company does something shady, it can be difficult (if not impossible) to find alternatives due to the massive consolidation of markets we've seen in past decades. Or, just as bad - you do have several options, but all of them engage in bad behavior, such that there's still not an obviously good option.
Normally, I'd expect governments to tamp down on this, but, well, even many western countries' governments are bribed to the gills explicitly not to, and I don't see that getting any better in my lifetime.
[+] [-] grimblee|5 months ago|reply
Everything is political. The way you dress, where you work, who are your friends, what you buy. Especially what you buy, maybe most of all in this society.
[+] [-] aeon_ai|5 months ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mhitza|5 months ago|reply
What's backing this claim?
[+] [-] bo0tzz|5 months ago|reply
Clearly linked in the above thread: https://jakelazaroff.com/words/dhh-is-way-worse-than-i-thoug...
[+] [-] delaminator|5 months ago|reply
[+] [-] AnimalMuppet|5 months ago|reply
And, yeah, I'm with your second paragraph. I think much of the country thinks that illegal immigration is a problem, and also thinks that Trump's enforcement of it has been unreasonably brutal and cruel. And a bunch of them think that trans people don't belong on womens' sports teams and that kids shouldn't transition, and also think that trans people don't deserve to be beaten and killed for being trans. And a bunch of them think that wealth inequality is a real problem, and also are deeply skeptical of the proposed solutions. And so on.
Many people are not really sold on the entirety of either party's platform. Unfortunately, all they get to do is vote every two years. One bit of feedback every two years. So Trump thinks he's got a mandate for everything he wants to do, but what he really has is a vote that the country wasn't happy with the way things were going under Biden.
(Now, true, there are also lots of people who are completely bought in to one side or the other. But since such people tend to be more vocal than the not-really-sold-on-either-side types, it makes it easy to overestimate how many people are zealots.
[+] [-] znpy|5 months ago|reply
You haven't seen that because there is none.
But the right left will label anybody that has even a slight disagreement as far right.
Nowadays a bunch of things (not all of them, of course) labeled as far right are perfectly fine, so much so that it's the stuff that democrats from 15-20 years ago would have advocated for.
[+] [-] airhangerf15|5 months ago|reply
Today Nazi == "Someone I don't like." It's overused so much it literally has no meaning.
DHH's only sin was creating Ruby on Rails, not his politics (same with Brendan Eich who I hope one day apologies to the world for inventing JavaScript).
Most reasonable people left Hackernews a long time ago when they banned the balance. Almost all that's left on here is echo-chamber.
[+] [-] pixxel|5 months ago|reply
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[+] [-] antiloper|5 months ago|reply
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[+] [-] lousken|5 months ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknownsky|5 months ago|reply