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.
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If they want to support a Nazi, they clearly do not want my money. No problem.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Preach. thank you for this ❤️
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.
I think the ostracization can be more of a catalyst for individual change than just ignoring them and letting them infect a community.
That is true. To be clear: I don’t advocate for allowing or ignoring hate speech.
Yeah, I’ve heard this response to my argument more times than I care to mention.
Let’s be clear, I don’t want to give off the impression I’m not open to people changing for the better. If you can end bigotry through discussion instead of arguments or worse yet, violence, then obviously that is preferable.
The issue is that for every honest misinformed person I’ve encountered who is open to listening to differing points of view, I’ve easily encountered 10 right wing grifters who are in bad faith trying to distract from the main problem with whataboutisms and other tactics, with the end goal of dehumanizing and ostracizing groups that they perceive as the other, i.e. minorities.
These people are in their adult years, likely grew up in households where they themselves were bullied, harassed, made fun of, and dehumanized. They then went to school where sadly they were likely to have experiences that further eroded their emotional intelligence and ability to connect with anybody who had differing views from them. They then grew up and sought out others who had suffered similar experiences and come to similar misguided conclusions, either online or IRL. These are people who grew up being told that apologizing was a sign of weakness, to never ever admit that they were or ever will be wrong, and to only play at having empathy in order to have a seat at the discussion table where they could then present their ideas as “just asking questions.” When in fact they are trying to sow discord and form a pipeline into their hateful ideology for others who are emotionally vulnerable and open to ideas as to why life didn’t play out for them like they thought it would.
If they lack critical thinking skills and a strong community support structure, these emotionally vulnerable people end up spewing hateful ideology within a few months and it breaks my heart, because usually there’s no coming back for them. They can’t be argued or reasoned with. It’s as if an empathetic child who just needed community died due to abandonment, and some ghoul due to demonic corruption is left in their place.
Its not that I don’t want to believe that people can change for the better. I’ve seen it in myself and others, I know it is real.
But I’ve also been in enough online, and in some cases, offline, spaces to know a bigot when I see one. I can sniff a disingenuous asshole just trying to “ask questions” from a mile away and it always ends up with a bunch of 4chan transphobes either openly or behind closed doors making fun of a minority and in some of the worst cases, planning violence.
My tolerance for even the smallest inkling of hate speech is zero. I’m just done giving these people enough rope to hang people I care about with.
I appreciate your response. I do not want to be in the same room as people that think my peers or I shouldn’t exist based on identity. Therefore people experiencing desires of fascism aren’t welcome. I still personally ponder how to rehabilitate them.
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”
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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
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”.
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.
I have tried to buy good laptops in the past (ThinkPads) and have been profoundly disappointed, part of the appeal of the Framework for me was that I could choose myself exactly what I wanted from my laptop. And I really couldn’t be happier with the hardware - build quality and everything is really great, and a completely different league from machines I have wasted money on in the past even though I tried my best to do my research.
It’s possible I should have tried System76 or Tuxedo, but I am really very happy with my Framework. Don’t think it makes sense to say it’s worse than the competition. But of course, a small company + repairability is reflected in the price.
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’m not sure I understand your question but to clarify :
Hyperland team and comunity members harassed FDO members and got banned from the freedesktop comunity.
The harasement from hyperland members pushed away fdo contributors who were working on wayland protocols
Vaxry is still pretty ableist, I think he’s just better at hiding it now. https://mastodon.social/@acidiclight/115348200226656321
tbf, that user doesn’t mention when he said those things, from what I could see.
Given the amount of publicity they’ve received from all this, I’m inclined to be a bit conspiracy theoretic about this… Did they plan it to unfold exactly like it did? Are you all helping them?
Controversy and infamy lasts for a few months, but after that’s over, the name Framework is still etched into everyone’s minds even though they don’t anymore exactly remember why.
I dunno, personally I’d rather know about this type of stuff - before this I’d have thought about buying or recommending it - it seems decent enough.
Although, I doubt I’d ever have bought one at those prices so maybe irrelevant. But this will be enough that even if i do win the premium bonds, I won’t get one and I won’t recommend anyone else. Some shit does continue to stink.
Any twat who thinks they are “building a wide tent” by tolerating nazis is pretty much a self defeating prophecy, or just a nazi trying to hide it.
I’d just rather the title was clearer - I have no idea what an ‘omarchy/dhh/hyprland’ is, and I don’t see how those words help the headline at all. Though anything with “hh” is immediately suspect - so that gives a cryptic hints what the title might be insinuating. I think title should just say for ‘promoting nazi stuff’. If anyone cares about the details of these obscure projects then they can read more of the article.
Do people feel they have to be crypto-antifascist now? That’s a bit of a scary turn of events.
I cannot speak for anyone else, but a year ago I thought that I’d never buy a chinese laptop due to political reasons and here we are one year later and I have a Lenovo. I think most people will eventually make their decisions based on something else than politics, or that politics are in issue only when choosing between things that are identical enough in every other way.
Well, the point of the article is that the selling point of a framework laptop lies only in its ethical and political nature. Without it, it’s just an overprized computer. So if framework loses its ethical selling point by associating itself with right-wing projects, why shouldn’t people buy a Lenovo laptop with better specs for less money instead?
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specifically, Twitter,
This is correct.
