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
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I really don’t know if people actually mean fascism/nazism or is this just a term applied to xenophobic nationalism. I see this all around fedi and I genuinely can’t tell which case it is.
Palingenetic ultranationalism is a definition of “true fascism” proposed by political theorist Roger Griffin.
So, you are painting with a fairly fine brush there. While “Nazi” is more metaphorical, there are definitely people with authority in the US government that are literally fascists.
I would say basic respect of human dignity. Fascism/nazism was always violent and unlawful. I care because fascism/nazism is really really terrible with horrible consequences for real people in real world and would thus like to now what are even talking about.
Are you saying the consequences of xenophobic nationalism are not terrible or horrible? Xenophobic nationalists respect basic human dignity?
To me arguing for changes in visa quotas and border control is not equal to advocating for forceful expulsion of people already living somewhere. To me that seems to be difference between moderates/fascists. CDU/AfD difference if you will.
@majster The difference here is between someone who wants to enact violence against others by forcefully expelling them from their homes vs someone who wants to enact violence against others by denying them a safe haven after they have been forcefully expelled from their homes. To me, this falls under the category of “differences between nazis/fascists/xenophobic nationalists which only a nazi/fascist/xenophobic nationalist would care about”. @wetling
This is unfortunate for sure. I want to give them a few days to respond for real, it’s always possible they just didn’t know about the issues here, but even in that thread they’re brushing it off as though it doesn’t matter. I’m not really sure what they get out of donating to these projects other than potential PR, anyway.
On a personal level I’ve recommended their laptops to people who have later bought them, and I was even looking at buying one myself to replace my aging macbook, but I don’t think I can do that anymore while this is unaddressed.
I wonder a bit about how this leaves framework as a company, too. They were always the brand people went to because of their stance on the politics of repairability and environmentalism. If they don’t have the politics on their side anymore, their laptops aren’t a great value proposition compared to other laptops. Sure, you can upgrade a framework, but if it costs twice as much as a similar laptop you’d have to upgrade the internals twice before you’ve saved any money.
That thread was a painful read. Framework laptop is off the wishlist.
They have been off my wishlist purely because of the cost, even DYI with missing pieces is $550. That’s more than my laptop was new so pass.
I bought one because I’m tired of having to scour ebay or AliExpress for replacement parts for my laptops.
I think people too often try to spend the minimum possible amount of money for a certain set of specs and then forget about build quality, support and so on.
I mean price is a very fair criticism though, especially with the current state of the economy. If you can afford the higher cost for worse specs but better repairability then great. If you can’t then you kinda have to go with a non-reparable option, but at least those guarantee a charger in the box.
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.”
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.
Phew, for a second I thought Framework had actually done something bad. But its just supporting Hyprland which is somehow considered a far right racist project because an unpaid moderator was transphobic in a discord server. People are really trying to squeeze everything they can from this discord drama that happened years ago.
Or, you know, they are sponsoring a) a white supremacists who believes in the white replacement conspiracy theory who’s in charge of omarchy and b) the project lead of (not just a discord mod) of hyperland. Two awful people that Framework absolutely deserve flack for supporting.
There’s this huge movement in online spaces lately to bash any and all positions and opinions by calling them transphobic.
Vote right? Transphobic. Vote left? Transphobic. Abstain from voting? Transphobic. Support a company? Transphobic. Boycott a company? Transphobic. Indifferent about a company? Transphobic.
The simplest explanation is a bunch of right-wingers are trying to make the term meaningless. Anyway, nowadays when I hear someone is transphobic, I make sure to wait for solid evidence before changing my opinions.
Vote right? Transphobic.
That is correct.
I get your point with the rest but…
Vote right? Transphobic.
Yeah, it kinda is? That’s a core plank of the MAGA platform; it’s practically inseparable. Unless you’re talking non-USA parties but then there’s still a better chance than none it’s a yes.
People who vote for a particular party generally don’t agree with 100% of that party’s platform. Just because someone voted for a party that has transphobia-motivated policies doesn’t mean they are transphobic. The correlation may be high, but it’s far from 100%.
You’re right, they are just performing hateful acts towards trans people, they may be doing it out of laziness or ignorance rather than actually hating trans people. As we all know, materially helping an anti trans cause doesn’t mean you hate trans people in the same way materially helping terrorists doesn’t make you a terrorist. Ex: our friends and allies in Saudi Arabia.
Voting isn’t a hateful act. Any insinuation of that needs to stop.
Voting can absolutely be a hateful act, I literally can’t imagine what happens in your brain that makes you think otherwise. The entire US 2024 election was hate vs not-the-hate-guy. A vengeance fantasy for middle aged white men.
No, if you think that, your brain is twisted by whatever spin your preferred media choice puts on.
The 2024 election was more about people wanting to see change, and one candidate clearly offering it and the other clearly not. Look at Harris’ polling timeline, she was doing well up until the beginning of October, so what happened? For example, she wouldn’t change anything from Biden’s first term, except having a Republican in the cabinet. Trump took that and ran with that, and I think that describes her support dropping around that time. People were unhappy with Biden’s first term, and she wouldn’t say anything bad about it. I didn’t watch the 60 minutes interview, but I’m guessing that went similarly.
I think most thought Trump was mostly rhetoric except the couple things they cared about. I think most thought he was bluffing about tariffs (or thought they’d work differently), thought he’d actually bring prices down, etc, which explains his cratering support so far. The average voter is kinda dumb/naive, but I don’t think they were largely voting on hate against immigrants, trans people, etc.
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.
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.
Did the author bother contacting them first before treating them like utter garbage and trying to rile up a public lynch mob? Just because something is well known to you doesn’t make it well known to everyone. If there are no alternatives with the feature set you are looking for, then sometimes you even have to overlook questionable authors, sort of like Lemmy. If it’s open source and has a license that allows forks, it doesn’t matter that much.
You use open source because of functionality. It didn’t used to be too long ago when people bothered to prove other people wrong through example instead of persecution. If you never convince people they are wrong, you just favor them creating and being in as much of an echo chamber as yourself. Even when they can’t be convinced, there are other people listening to the conversation.
We support open source software (and hardware), and partner with developers and maintainers across the ecosystem. We deliberately create a big tent, because we want open source software to win. We don’t partner based on individuals’ or organizations’ beliefs, values, or political stances outside of their alignment with us on increasing the adoption of open source software.
Even just from looking at it from a practical standpoint, it would sink just about any company if they have to go full FBI investigation for every single member. If you agree with OP so much, then why do you not agree with OP?
perhaps it is indeed best to let it rest for now. i’ll certainly sleep on it now! :slight_smile:
Some people want to watch the world burn bridges.
from what i’ve seen online, the build quality of framework laptops is garbage as well. i’d rather get a (linux) laptop with solid build quality and use it a bit longer instead of having to replace the monitor hinges every year or so.
And that is relevant to the thread because … ? I don’t know, ദ്ദി ? If you are trying to make an objective evaluation of their products, you could not make seem any more of a smear attempt by replying in this thread out-of-context.
It’s relevant because we’re talking about Framework. Product quality factors into evaluating the company besides their poloitical ties.
ദ്ദി, but your evaluation means nothing to me but subjective hearsay.
Here is what responding in the actually proper context looks like: https://www.reddit.com/r/framework/comments/181fl9m/what_are_your_major_criticisms_of_the_framework/
