Mastodawn

Jordan Petridis

I wrote a post about DHH fash speedrun and crashout.

DHH and Omarchy: Midlife crisis

https://blogs.gnome.org/alatiera/2025/11/06/dhh-and-omarchy-midlife-crisis/

Crush Fascism.

#linux #framework #omarchy #ruby

DHH and Omarchy: Midlife crisis

Couple weeks ago Cloudflare announced it would be sponsoring some Open Source projects. Throwing money at pet projects of random techbros would hardly be news, but there was a certain vibe behind them and the people leading them. In an unexpected turn of events, the millionaire receiving money from the billion-dollar company, thought it would...

Rust in Peace

@alatiera Great post! I especially enjoyed the conclusion, showing compassion and strict boundaries at the same time.

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦Nov 6

@alatiera that was an awesomely inspired read. well done and thank you.

Ramin Honary Nov 6

@alatiera
Absolutely fantastic, well written, well researched post!

nina splendorr 🌻🏳️‍⚧️Nov 6

@alatiera Really great. Calm, clear, and pointed! Nice job handling yourself with dignity.

… unlike david

GeePawHill Nov 6

@alatiera I *still* don't know why anyone would care what David Hamburger-Helper* thinks.

[*] h/t Esther Schindler, I believe.

requiem 🦫Nov 6

@alatiera you know I never liked Cloudflare, and I like them eve less now.

Alavi | علوی Nov 6

@alatiera
Oh my god this was one of the worst blog posts I've read in a while.

I'm no DHH fan but this writing was absolutely childish and misleading. Everything is skewed and it feels like a middleschool launch table roast battle.

For example this blog claims he had a post saying "andrew tate is awesome"
I clicked on the link. Nowhere in the post was he claiming such thing.
He was talking about equality of free speech which is absolutely right.
Even though I hate andrew tate, his take was a balanced take on such situation.

DHH is popular, successful, and had a big role in the of web technologies.
He has created actual things, actual value. Everyone seem to actually like Omarchy even not knowing who DHH is.
I don't know him, he might be an absolute piece of evil shit (so far I haven't seen that. Just different views from me) but he's creating value.

People love to hate, eh?

Tanguy ⧓ Herrmann Nov 6

@alavi @alatiera have you read other posts from DHH?
It seems you're defending somebody who despise people who are not white living in a country where they are not originally from.

Read DHH take on this subject, it is vile.

https://web.archive.org/web/20250926070158/https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64

(A archive.org link because he doesn't more clicks)

As I remember London

As soon as I was old enough to travel on my own, London was where I wanted to go. Compared to Copenhagen at the time, there was something so majestic about Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, and even the Tube around the turn of the millenium. Not just because their capital is twice as old as ours, but because it endured twice as much, through ...

Alavi | علوی Nov 6

@dolanor @alatiera
I don't follow the drama and I don't care to.
I'm not defending DHH the person, I'm defending his technical work.
I'm bashing the writing of this extremely childish blog post. Nothing good ever comes out of skewing things and attacking projects because of their creator.
I couldn't care less if DHH is having a midlife crisis or whatever.
He has horrible views (according to me, you or the next person?)? Maybe I have horrible views according to someone else.
The link you sent won't open but if that's actually what he says and not the interpretation of us from it, that's a horrible thing to say. But we can say horrible things, can't we? Until those horrible things become actions, there is no problem.
What happened to the freedom of speech, y'all?

Is omarchy good or bad? Is ruby on rails good or bad?
Debate the technical points.
Pulling each other's hair out over sissy drama never gets us any good.

Again, couldn't care less about DHH. But this type of gossip writing really frustrates me.

Tanguy ⧓ Herrmann Nov 6

@alavi @alatiera

excerpt: "
The easy way out of this uncomfortably large gathering of perfectly normal, peaceful Brits".
This "peaceful" protest had people in it saying they would wait on the shore of England and kill migrant right there. Or that they would just stab brown people in the street.
I don't call that peaceful, I call that hateful, the willingness to kill somebody else.

So DHH is clearly skewing things his way as well.

Freedom of speech is alright, but it's not free from consequences. And if somebody say hateful things, they can't be surprised to have people disgusted by them. And they can't play the victim card.

And to stay technical: Rails was a good idea, and I guess still is. That doesn't automatically gives the author an immunity pass to be a dickhead.
Omarchy, from what I read is just a bunch of shell script to automate some installation of extra packages out of an ArchLinux. And just `curl | sh` ing stuff that are not packaged in arch linux. So nothing really otherwordly deserving praises. It's just another linux that doesn't share improvement to the original (Arch Linux).
And it packages Grok in it, which a few days back was calling itself MechaHitler.
So, how come this get 24K€ in grants from Cloudflare, when projects like Gnome or KDE don't even get half?
The guy is already a fucking millionaire, does he need this money personally?

I mean, I just don't know how much dog whistle you need to see the problem. He garnered a huge following, thanks to Rails, and now he's just using this to share more and more fascist ideas and make money out of it.
And it's not a sissy drama, it's fascism rising alarmingly everywhere and this needs to be stopped and not just looked at from the sidelines hoping we're not the next target.

Tanguy ⧓ Herrmann Nov 6

@alavi @alatiera is Hans Reiser a great guy because he made a great File System, or we should also tell him he's awful because he's killed his wife?
Should we just ignore that fact because ReiserFS was really good?

Proficiency Nov 8

@dolanor @alavi @alatiera if you ask me: "if a Fascist is a great poet, I'd shot him anyway".

ratfactor Nov 6

@alavi @dolanor @alatiera

> "I don't follow the drama and I don't care to."

Please ask yourself why you feel the need to rush in to defend DHH. Are you absolutely certain you wish to do that? Do you have similar feelings about Curtis Yarvin, creator of Urbit?

In my recent experience, this "no politics" argument goes in exactly one direction.

Vadim Rutkovsky Nov 6

@alavi @alatiera I wonder if you're familiar with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism?

Whataboutism - Wikipedia

@alatiera I really like the constructive and passionate but not aggressive voice you have used in your writing. Congratulations, that's no small feat.

And an awesome song for closing.

NEPŘÁTELSKÉ EMOCE 🇺🇦🇨🇿Nov 6

@alatiera wish i didn't learn about this person

🌺 Cat Pöñíçkøvā Nov 6

@lkundrak @alatiera do drugs

NEPŘÁTELSKÉ EMOCE 🇺🇦🇨🇿Nov 6

@pony @alatiera thank you

degenerating degenerate Nov 6

Cachet
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cachet

Definition of CACHET

Definition of 'cachet' by Merriam-Webster

Tanguy ⧓ Herrmann Nov 6

@alatiera this blog post is great.
And it's worth it just for the names of the links to the original posts that are pretty funny considering what is behind, in silver lining.

Maybe you can link to web.archive.org to not give more clicks to his blog?

@alatiera great piece. Perfect to point people to when they ask why DDH is a PoS

the magpie Nov 6

@alatiera great write-up. As a non-developer user of FLOSS I didn't know things were that bad. As there is probably more money to be made with FLOSS in the near future, with increasing parts of Europe trying to regain technical independence from US tech giants, I guess this is only getting worse. Are there any simple ways to know which projects support and commit to DEI? Some kind of seal or common commitment?

Paula Babbicola Nov 6

@alatiera even people who don’t care that much about social justice in my circle think that he’s a piece of shit.

Wilfried Klaebe Nov 6

@alatiera Not calling a nazi a nazi is a permission slip for violence, DHH!

Nice article. When I saw comments about him before about him, I duckduckgoed him but found little. I can see DHH is a certified crackpot!

@alatiera Excellent post, and I did have a wee giggle at the drop shipped Elon quip.

Victoria 🏳️‍⚧️Nov 6

@alatiera wait, cloudflare also supported them? Well, no shock here.

@alatiera the final sentence in that post "Don’t let them find comfort and spew their vomit in any public space." is a call to action that can't be done. DHH is on Twitter where their vomit is not only allowed but encouraged.

Kraftwerk-Das Model Collapse Nov 6

@justin @alatiera Nazis can only ever be contained, not eradicated. Let them have their bubble and ridicule + ban them everywhere else.

Julian Hofer Nov 6

@alatiera great write-up, Jordan!

Owen Blacker Nov 6

@alatiera A great piece well put 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

@alatiera Great piece, and I absolutely loved the 100% accurate alternative titles you gave his blog posts.

@alatiera I was with you until you made fun of him for having long hair

Pxl Phile Nov 6

@alatiera man this is so precisely dissectioned, I get nauseous from the massive fascistofuckery

Thanks for the great write up 💪🏾

☃️karolherbst☃️Nov 6

@alatiera "extremely selective when hiring" oh man.. I think this topic on its own deserves more attention, because isn't it always code for racism, classism (others call it elitism, same thing tho) and exploitation?

Or rather, I have never seen it used in any other meaning 🙃

Anyway, great post.

Jordan Petridis Nov 6

@karolherbst Than you. Yea would be cool if someone else with direct experience explored it further.

@alatiera @karolherbst @karolherbst @alatiera Back then it _usually_ meant hiring on skill/experience/referrals because all these things had just been invented, so academic credentials or long corporate careers were irrelevant. When the skills became more common, the "culture fit" filter was invented, and that quickly became the no-browns-allowed filter

@alatiera @karolherbst Other companies were similar so you can connect the dots why many famous non-whites today, started their careers around that time. I don't think many of them would even get a canned response nowadays

☃️karolherbst☃️Nov 6

@diegoe @alatiera There is also the aspect of that _some_ companies have to train people so they can become good.

So if a company only hires "the best of the best" you don't train people, meaning you externalize training costs to other companies giving you a financial advantage.

But also if you do it the "you need to be the 5% in school" way you also bias towards upper class people and white folks, because the strongest reason for having good grades are rich parents.

@karolherbst @alatiera These kind of hiring was popular back then precisely because it went against the issues you describe. It's just that as soon as talent became more common it all slowly rebuilt back to class/race/externalities

@karolherbst @alatiera Most of the current problems with hiring in tech are the same problems that "innovative" tech companies were supposed to avoid. You could even say that when labor has power, employers have to just STFU and give concessions like fairer hiring, benefits, compensation... 👀

Daniel Reeders Nov 6

@alatiera Lovely writing and now I understand that whole *gestures* situation better.

Federico Mena Quintero Nov 7

@alatiera this is 🔥 🔥 🔥 Awesome post!

Ignacy Kuchciński Nov 7

RE: https://mastodon.social/@alatiera/115499875786555668

@alatiera "I think there is hope, but it demands more voices in tech spaces to speak up about how having empathy for others, or valuing diversity is not some grand conspiracy but rather enrichment to our lives and spaces. This comes hand in hand with firmly shutting down concern trolling and ridiculous “extreme centrist” takes where someone is expected to find common ground with others advocating for their extermination."

Right on point! 🙏

Morten Linderud Nov 7

@alatiera
The post is great and hilarious.

CuriousFurBytes Nov 8

@alatiera just finished reading it. Great post, thank you! Wish more people would speak up