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That still doesn’t really address my point.

Whether there are two alternatives or two thousand doesn’t change what using the software means. If someone prefers Omarchy’s defaults, setup or workflow, that’s enough of a reason to use it.

And if it’s really “just Linux with a few dotfiles added”, that makes the idea that using it is some meaningful political endorsement even harder to take seriously.

I use Fedora. I obviously don’t “have to” use Omarchy.

But the existence of alternatives has nothing to do with whether using a piece of software means endorsing its author. Otherwise software selection just becomes an ideological loyalty test.

That’s just guilt by association with a Hitler comparison thrown in.

Brendan Eich created JavaScript and donated to the campaign against same-sex marriage in California. Does using JavaScript mean you endorse that too?

Of course not. Using someone’s work isn’t an endorsement of their politics.

I honestly don’t see why any of this should stop someone from using the software.

It’s open source. If you don’t like DHH, his politics, or the people funding Omarchy, then don’t give them money. Don’t donate, don’t sponsor them, don’t contribute upstream.

But the code is out there under the MIT license. Anyone can use it, change it, remove whatever they don’t like, or fork the whole thing.

Using a piece of open-source software doesn’t mean you endorse the politics of whoever wrote it. If that were the standard, we’d probably have to audit the personal beliefs of thousands of developers before installing anything.

And if people really think Omarchy has become some political project, then fork it. Change the branding, change the maintainers, change whatever you want. That’s literally one of the reasons open source is useful.

Boycotting companies you don’t want to financially support is one thing. Treating open-source code itself as politically contaminated is another, and I don’t think that makes much sense.

The day pirate online servers go mainstream and capture a large share of the online market, I think things will become very difficult for them.