Title of the (concerning) thread on their community forum, not voluntary clickbait. Came across the thread thanks to a toot by @Khrys@mamot.fr (French speaking)
The gist of the issue raised by OP is that framework sponsors and promotes projects lead by known toxic and racists people (DHH among them).
I agree with the point made by the OP :
The “big tent” argument works fine if everyone plays by some basic civil rules of understanding. Stuff like code of conducts, moderation, anti-racism, surely those things we agree on? A big tent won’t work if you let in people that want to exterminate the others.
I’m disappointed in framework’s answer so far
I would say most of the customers of Framework are the kinds of people who espouse the kind of antifascist ideology that that guy that started the thread does.
I don’t think that the fascist sympathizer circle and the “willing to pay more money for an ethical laptop that isn’t beholden to a big corporation for repair” circles have much overlap.
This is easy, “Framework doesn’t support fascism or racism in any form. We support open source software and right to repair. Due to concerns with ideology in some of the projects we sponsor we are reviewing the projects we sponsor to make sure that they align with our values as a company.”
The fact that they aren’t willing to say so says plenty.
The elephant in the room more people need to pay attention to that many of us who work in IT are painfully intimate with.
Many IT people are hardcore libertarians who believe in some warped idea that they are where they are through their intelligence and hardwork while completely ignoring many of them come from backgrounds that afforded them the opportunities they are taking advantage of.
100% many of them are sexist, racist and bigoted pieces of shit that hide it at work because they’re adept at masking the fact that a lot of them are borderline autistic at worst and neurodivergent at best.
This is also why you see such a deep investment in idiocy like AI, Bitcoin and other paradigm shifts. They all have their heads up their asses and feel they’re better than everyone else.
Couple all this with the demographic being primarily white males.
Fuck talk to any woman who works in IT. It’s changing yes, but Jesus Christ it’s a cesspool in many ways.
Source: 25+ years in IT
White dude in software here to echo the same sentiment. So many of my colleagues have never experienced any hardship of their own or viewpoints of people with different experiences. They don’t think about how their privilege has helped them get where they are, and how their company culture often subtly (at best!) reinforces their worldview and massages their egos. They’ve never tried to think critically about their “meritocracy” or “libertarian” beliefs and how many people are unjustly excluded from the lifestyle they enjoy.
20 years in software development for me.
By now, I’m feeling extremely fortunate.
I’ve been career software engineering since 1995; I gave in and went management in 2014.
I’ve maybe not known þe politics of most people I’ve worked wiþ, but þe ones I have have been quite decent people. I’m wondering if location is a factor - I got stuck on þe East Coast (USA) for most of my career. I hated it - it was so opressingly corporate - but it was also rigorously egalitarian.
Where have you been located?
This has been my experience in San Francisco over the past 15 years. The techbro types, who see technology as a way to get rich, often share the same worldview that life is about “winning” and in this business you “win” if you are smarter than others, so therefore since they are “winning”, they are smart and deserve everything they get (or… take). But, that mentality and their behavior and the culture it creates can often influence humble, empathetic people into that toxic self-hype cycle.
Many IT people are hardcore libertarians who believe in some warped idea that they are where they are through their intelligence and hardwork while completely ignoring many of them come from backgrounds that afforded them the opportunities they are taking advantage of.
I was this person. It is possible to reform, but it takes genuine curiosity and willingness to be wrong. Neither of those is rewarded by the IT environment of the last 30 years.
At my company, most of the IT team are hardcore Trump supporters who do not see a problem with working with LGBTQIA people and being polite to their face, while also wanting them to have less rights.
Yes, they are all white men. And yes, all of them will tell you how hard they worked to get there, completely oblivious of how much an advantage they got to get there.
Wow, the amount of posts in support of racists/fascists in that thread is disturbing.
Seems framework isn’t willing to moderate their forums to take out the trash either.
First, Omarchy doesn’t need funding or partners. It’s backed by a Nazi multimillionaire.
Second, the whole apolitical argument is bullshit. Everything is political. Support for a distro that doesn’t really need support by nature of being a child of a Nazi multimillionaire is a support for that Nazi multimillionaire.
“We didn’t support them because of that” means nothing. The support still sends a message. Just like artist loses control over interpretation of their art the moment they release it, people lose control over interpretation of their actions the moment they act. Does it sound fair? Maybe not, but it’s how reality works.
It hurts to see posts saying “Framework is not political”… Like damn it is, what do you think the mission of framework is?
“Technology is apolitical” that’s entirely false. A load of decisions about tech are made politically, or at least with a lawyer behind you telling what is and what isn’t legal (these laws that were decided… By politics).I think tech communities will have a major split in the coming years.
On one side you have the “apolitical devs” who don’t understand they are making political decisions every damn day. They claim to be centrists but it’s all a facade for neo liberalism.
On the other side, you have people that understand the reality we live in, that understand every decision they take is gonna affect the human that is using their software. That we are responsible for what happens into the world and that allowing fascists to spread their ideas will end badly.Staying neutral is giving your ok to fascism and racism. Staying silent is how these ideas and movements take place and is a political choice.
If you force every person to pick a team, you may not like the result. gestures at current president
People who are happy to not take a political stance on everything, particularly in their professional life, is good.
We have the current president because most Americans did not pick a side, and our garbage electoral system allows a plurality to win
So should we all stop using Lemmy because it was made by a Tankie?
Not the same but sure. Go ahead. There’s piefed.social too!
No we use Lemmy and make fun of the Tankies as revenge
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Using Lemmy isn’t giving that tankie money.
It is is you support lemmy’s development which for a foss platform its expected users do
But not required. If I do not morally support the developer I can instead choose to financially support individual instances, or other projects like Piefed or mbin.
My point here is that comparing this situation to using Lemmy is a bad comparison. Supporting Framework is pretty much exclusively via financial support, the same is not true for Lemmy.
Doesn’t seem clear cut at all after reading the whole thread. You support one thing who’s creator has questionable views but not the other. The main difference seems to be that you like one and not the other.
The main difference is that fascism and racism are fundamentally destructive ideologies/traits, while tankie is just a derogatory term for folks on the far left used by people that think extreme left and extreme right are the same kind if evil. It’s a display of arrogant ignorance, congratulations.
Many would argue tankies live by an ideology with a comparable body count to fascism.
Lesson learned - companies should never support open source projects because you run the risk of pissing people off.
The community is pushing them to improve their stance. All they have to do is acknowledge the communities problem with this and stop funding and promoting two objectionable projects.
i dont think framework is big enough to factcheck every linux maniac
Yeah I don’t think you get how this works. They had time to research the tool they are recommending but literally nothing about the backers or community? Framework will absolutely have a legal team whose job would include vetting these orgs.
But let’s say you’re right and framework is operating a company with no legal counsel (which is also a giant red flag): their response was “we are chill with terrible people in our space, we have a big tent”. Not “you’re right, we didn’t do research on these guys thanks for bringing it to our attention we’ll do some research”. If they said that, this wouldn’t be a thing. Instead, they said affirmatively “we don’t care if they are white nationalists, we want to include white nationalists in our tent”.
…a legal team checking out linux forums and discord servers for anti trans actions…you ok buddy?
Before they invest money? Yes
Lesson learned: don’t support open source projects. One apparently has to get legal, pr, and a whole investigation (on an ongoing basis!) for every project. Better and cheaper to just not.
Have you…never had a job? I’m really really confused by your aggro response. This is standard operating procedure for any company with more than like 15 people (or with any large assets they can be sued over). I regularly get quotes delayed due to companies having to get their own quotes for their own off the shelf hardware through legal approval.
Have you…never had a job?
Yep. And if customers are getting pissed due to charitable donations we are doing…that incurs a significant cost and becomes a massive hurdle for any future charitable donations.
So, as I said, lesson learned: don’t support open source projects.
Edit: Next meeting about supporting open source project: “Hey this author has opinion x, anti-x is going to hate that. Let’s just spend the money elsewhere.”
Following meeting about supporting a different open source project: “Hey, this author has opinion anti-x, x is going to hate that. Let’s just spend the money elsewhere.”
If that’s the takeaway you want rather than “standard business practice is to vet organizations you support to make sure your goals are aligned”…uh…good for you?
I remember the scandal around hyprland and it was pretty bad - much worse than one or two fascists contributing.
Even so I could forgive distros still having hyprland in their repos.
But giving money to the project itself? No.
Where are we with hyprland these days? How has the shitshow continued sice 2023?
Oh and btw, in what capacity is Framework supporting hyprland? Is there a Framework distro?
Wow framework sells a lot of computers to real fascist psychos. That thread is rough. Comment about ICE only arresting criminals would be hilarious if it weren’t so pathetic. “I have immigrant friends” lol.
Wow framework sells a lot of computers to real fascist psychos
A computer company doesn’t do a political evaluation of each of their customers. When was the last time you had to submit your political beliefs in order to buy a computer from…anywhere?
What a bizarre take on my message. Re-read what I wrote, and then read what you wrote, and maybe revise some of your assumptions about what I wrote.
I don’t care if they’re selling computers to fascist psychos.
I do care that they’re using their soapbox to promote those fascist psychos.
This is the problem with the “we’re not talking about politics in here” approach. A lot of smaller companies, entities, “influencers”… will attempt to become apolitical, a ploy to market to as many people as possible, but it’s ill advised. You have to make your beliefs actually clear from the start. And after a certain size, you must avoid becoming too personal about things. Get a PR specialist if you can, even. It’ll save a lot of headache to kearn you can’t please everybody, and there’ll always be someone dissatisfied with you, so you better choose early who they’ll be.
This is the problem with the “we’re not talking about politics in here” approach.
Vulnerable minorities are always “political.”
Is the code racist? If not I don’t care who wrote it.
I wonder how many people in this thread drive a Mercedes or Volkswagen or even a Ford for that matter (Henry Ford was given medals by the Nazis).
Henry Ford died 75+ years ago. Is the current CEO a Nazi sympathizer?
Cope however you want but the fact remains driving a Ford means supporting Nazis. His involvement with the Nazis was no small amount, regardless how long ago it was. Slavery was centuries ago, yet white people are still vilified for their ancestors. How is it any different?
I’m not the one coping here dude. My choice of car today doesn’t give any money to a guy who’s been dead for 3/4 of a century.
Also, I don’t drive a Ford anyway so go grasp at straws somewhere else.
The cope isn’t about driving a Ford, it’s about supporting a company that directly profited from actual Nazis. The virtuous thing is to not support a company who progressed through blood money.
Well, as I already said, I don’t own a Ford. So I’m not sure how you think I’m supporting them.
But even then, your point is nonsensical because the Nazi supporters are dead and the current CEO wasn’t even born until long after Henry died and the war ended.
Unless you want to get into North Korea style multi generational punishment. But I think we all agree that’s a bad thing.
So unless you can articulate how Ford Motor Company today is actively supporting Nazis, we’re done.
i do want to point out how hard it is to even find out about the views of these people, if you just look up the names of the projects and aren’t specifically looking for this information there’s no way you’ll find anything about it
even looking up the name of David Heinemeier Hansson, the more vocally bad of these, i had to go to the 5th link to find anything even vaguely mentioning his views
Isn’t that a good thing?
I don’t know about you, but I don’t really care what the views of the owners of a business are. It only becomes a problem if they make those views plain.
Wow I guess if you have to scroll all the way to the fifth whole link it can’t possibly be plain, can it?
Sure the business owner thinks anyone who isn’t white doesn’t count as a person, but he only uses the resources you give him to promote that point of view as a hobby, so why worry?
I don’t know, was it a personal blog, some social media post, or a page on the company’s website? You didn’t specify, and I honestly don’t care enough to try to replicate your search.
If they’re able to separate personal views from how they run their company, it shouldn’t really matter what those views are.
It’s literally in the post you’re responding to. I didn’t do any external research other than read the thread.
This is the part I’m talking about:
i do want to point out how hard it is to even find out about the views of these people
…
even looking up the name of David Heinemeier Hansson, the more vocally bad of these, i had to go to the 5th link to find anything even vaguely mentioning his views
You are not the person I originally responded to, how would you know they were referencing the OP? There aren’t even 5 links in the article, and if we count the embedded X posts, the fifth link is about Hyprland. I’m pretty sure that’s not what the OP is referring to.
The OP’s point is that it’s hard to find info on these people’s views, and the links in the OP are from other people doing that digging. As in, we likely wouldn’t know their views if these bloggers didn’t dig through posts looking for it.
Tbh I’m not sure what you’re saying here. Person said they had to scroll down 5 results to get to the asshole being an asshole and seemed to think that was proof it’s hard to research (hence my “five whole links”) and then you seemed to be saying that since it’s “hard to find” and the business isn’t slapping a nazi flag front and center on their website means it’s fine to use their stuff. If that’s not what you meant, great. But you said the same thing again, so I’m pretty sure you meant it.
I’m saying that there’s a good chance Framework didn’t know the views of those projects when they donated, so ascribing those views to framework doesn’t make logical sense. That’s all.
Wait frameworl k aka the laptop ppl?
Why can’t we have nice things…
Framework is supporting open source development. That has somehow been twisted into the thread title.
Projects are not their authors. Please give the politics a rest. I’ve had enough of politics lately.
Wether you like it or not, some people don’t have the luxury to stop fighting, even more so right now with so-called democratic governments that brutalize, lock up and torture people for their opinions, their sexuality or their skin color.
Ignore these debates if you wish, and disconnect from social networks if you need to rest. But don’t call for people to stop fighting when their very existence is put at risk by people like DHH, that Framework decided to support.
you can give politics a rest, but politics won’t give you a rest. especially if you are gay, trans, black, or in any of those marginalized groups.
Amen. I get the sentiment but Jesus Christ everything is politics when you boil it down. Yes it’s draining to focus on it 24/7 but it’s equally destructive to bury your head in the sand.
Sadly, the official discord server appears to also be a cesspool. So the community is also not that great
Which sucks, because omarchy seems to be quite nice
It’s become all about purity testing. From both the right and the left. And since any purity test can be anything that anyone wants it be, everyone is guaranteed to fail it at some point. And because the internet never forgets, something you said 20 years ago now is grounds for being purged. Without any thought to what that person now believes and how they think.
Is this situation relevant to that example? Are the people in question changed since the time in which the accusations were made?
Rebranding personal ethics and morals as “a purity test” is disingenuous at best.
If you’re going to take umbridge with someone’s approach at least do it directly instead of this backhanded high horse bullshit.
It might be the same situation of me. I’m not a fascist and I use hyprland, I just was unaware until now.
tbh, the hyperland thing is, for me personally, not too dramatic. Like there was a failure in moderation and response, but “a manufacturer that supports an floss project that has a discord channel where a mod changed the pronouns of a user and the admin of said channel didn’t respond harshly enough” sounds “forgiveable”. Not ideal, but also not super dramatic.
DHH on the other hand 😅😂…
The hyprland situation is waaaay more than just that. And it’s not hard to find with a search.
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