Weird Little Guys of FOSS  🔗 **Source:** [Weird Little Guys of FOSS](https://drewdevault.com/weird-guys/) > [!note]+ Document Notes > --- > tags: [open-source, tech-culture, far-right-politics, community-governance, harassment] > author: Drew DeVault > source: drewdevault.com > reference: https://drewdevault.com/weird-guys/ > date created: 2026-09-05 > --- > > [!info] Generated analysis — not the author's words. Sections below are machine-written > > from the captured source. Only text inside `> [!quote]` blocks is verbatim from the author. > > Do not quote or attribute any other line to the named author. > ## Summary > - The author, SourceHut founder Drew DeVault, compiles a running list of named individuals in free and open source software (FOSS) and adjacent spaces, each entry pairing the person's notable project with allegations of racism, transphobia, misogyny, harassment, or association with far-right figures and funding networks. > - What happened: the piece names roughly a dozen figures — including the founder of SerenityOS/Ladybird, Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich, Ruby on Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson ("DHH"), Open Source Initiative co-founder Eric S. Raymond, Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman, and Hyprland founder Vaxry — with specific, sourced claims (each linked "[source]" in the original) about their conduct or affiliations. > - Why it matters: the author frames this as documenting a "little network of weirdos" whose funding and social ties (naming FUTO, Cloudflare, Shopify, 37signals, Curtis Yarvin, and an event called "Omacon 2026") connect otherwise separate FOSS projects to a shared far-right political current. > - Key stakeholders: the named individuals and their projects (SerenityOS, Ladybird, Brave, Omarchy, Xlibre, Hyprland, the OSI, the FSF, GNU/GCC), the corporate sponsors named as funding some of them, and the broader FOSS community whose governance and codes of conduct are implicated. > - Risk/tradeoff: the page is explicitly a list of allegations, most linked to a "[source]" but not detailed or quoted within the article itself; the author states upfront "Don't harass these people! Don't engage with them at all," framing the list as informational rather than a call to action. > - Bottom line: the author presents this as evidence that far-right ideology has organized funding and social channels within FOSS specifically, not just among individuals coincidentally holding those views. > ## Main content > - The article's stated purpose and ground rule: a crowdsourced-style list ("Request additions, removals, or changes via email; patches welcome") explicitly framed as documentation, with an opening instruction not to harass or engage with the people named. > - Structural pattern across entries: each person is introduced by their FOSS credential ("Known for: ..."), followed by specific allegations (each typically marked "[source]" in the original, linking to external evidence not reproduced in this captured text), then often a note on funding or association with other named figures. > - Recurring funding and association network the author draws out: FUTO (founded by Eron, described as friends with Curtis Yarvin), 37signals/Shopify (tied to David Heinemeier Hansson), Cloudflare, Framework, Dell, Block, Dropbox, Proton, JetBrains, and Sourcegraph are each named as sponsors of one or more of the individuals listed. > - "Omacon 2026," described as David Heinemeier Hansson's conference, is named twice in the article as a point of connection — both ThePrimeagen and Vaxry are noted as speakers there, per the source. > - The Stallman entry names allegations distinct in kind from the others: the article states Stallman "frequently writes on his website in defense of rapists, sexual harassment, sexual exploitation of minors, distribution of child sexual abuse material, and even bestiality and necrophilia," attributing detailed coverage to a named external resource, "The Stallman Report." > - The Jacob Appelbaum entry describes a 2016 incident in which "ten people came forward to present serious accusations of sexual harassment, assault, and rape," which the article states led to his removal from the Tor project, Debian, and the Noisebridge hackerspace he co-founded — each removal linked to a separate source in the original. > - The article closes with an artwork credit ("Artwork by @[email protected]"), indicating this is a maintained, illustrated community page rather than a one-off blog post. > ## Notes > - This is an article, not a timestamped transcript or video — no timestamp subheadings apply. > - The piece is structured as a sequence of short, mostly self-contained biographical entries; there is no continuous narrative argument beyond the shared framing (FOSS + far-right association) established in the opening two lines. > - Several entries note financial sponsorship as a distinct claim from the behavioral allegations — for example, Andreas (SerenityOS/Ladybird) is described as personally posting views the article calls transphobic and in support of "white replacement" theory, separately from the article's list of the project's corporate sponsors (FUTO, Cloudflare, Shopify, Proton, JetBrains, Sourcegraph, and others). > - The Daniel Bernstein and Tanja Lange entry differs from most others in citing an academic-context allegation (a graduate student, Henry de Valence, "resigned from their PhD program in 2016 citing patterns of harassment, abuse, and bullying") rather than public political statements. > - The entry for ThePrimeagen is notably shorter and more hedged than most others: the article states his "content isn't all that weird" but flags his public associations (speaking at Omacon 2026, donating to Ladybird) as the basis for inclusion. > ## References > - [The Stallman Report](https://stallmanreport.org/) — external resource cited in the Stallman entry as documenting his writings in detail (URL inferred from common public naming; not given verbatim in the captured source). > - The article itself links "[source]" after nearly every specific claim; those individual URLs were not captured in this document's text and would need to be pulled from the live page for verification. > - Related background: the Rossmann/FUTO/Yarvin network and the Rails leadership response to the DHH controversy are referenced but not linked with full citations in this captured text. > ## Paraphrase > - Opening framing: this is a community-maintained list of notable figures in free and open source software whose public statements or documented conduct the author connects to racism, transphobia, misogyny, or far-right political networks. The author asks readers not to harass or engage with anyone named, positioning the page as documentation rather than a call to action. > - Entry pattern: for each person, the article states their FOSS credential, then lays out specific claims — a social media post, a funding relationship, a past organizational removal — each tied to an external source link. Several entries cross-reference each other (shared sponsors, shared conference appearances, personal friendships), building toward the author's implicit claim that these are not isolated individuals but a connected network. > ## Newsletter > - Drew DeVault's "Weird little guys of FOSS" page names about a dozen prominent open source figures — SerenityOS's founder, Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich, Rails creator DHH, OSI co-founder Eric S. Raymond, FSF founder Richard Stallman, and Hyprland's Vaxry among them — with sourced allegations tying each to racism, transphobia, harassment, or far-right funding networks. > - Useful context for anyone doing due diligence before sponsoring, contributing to, or featuring a project at a conference: the piece maps out funding relationships (FUTO, Cloudflare, Shopify, 37signals) that connect several of these projects to each other and to figures like Curtis Yarvin. > - Handle with care in any public writeup: this is a list of allegations, most linked to external sources not reproduced here — verify each claim against its original source before repeating it, and note the article's own explicit instruction not to harass anyone named. > ## Action items > #### Due diligence / community governance > - Before recommending, sponsoring, or featuring any project named here at a WordPress, DevRel, or open source event, ch This is a list of weird little guys in the free software movement and adjacent spaces. Request additions, removals, or changes [via email](mailto:[email protected]); patches welcome. **Don’t harass these people**! Don’t engage with them at all. #### Alex Gleason **Known for**: nostr stuff Alex is a prominent figure in the nostr community, and an antagonist on FOSS social media platforms generally. He developed the software used for Truth Social, Donald Trump’s fediverse thing,[[source]](https://www.reuters.com/technology/head-engineering-trumps-truth-social-app-resigns-2023-07-17/) and was banned from the Mastodon instance he used back in 2023 for being openly transphobic.[[source]](https://web.archive.org/web/20230330163111/https://blog.alexgleason.me/gab-block/)[[source]](https://web.archive.org/web/20230331173749/https://blog.alexgleason.me/trans/) This photo of him on the right is prominently displayed on his personal website. #### Andreas Kling **Known for**: SerenityOS, Ladybird Andreas is the founder of SerenityOS and the Ladybird web browser. He posted in support of Charlie Kirk after his assassination,[[source]](https://x.com/awesomekling/status/1966456391146606806), gets triggered by the phrase “punch nazis”,[[source]](https://x.com/awesomekling/status/1967178708852097278), and the idea of using gender-neutral pronouns in documentation.[[source]](https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/pull/6814) Andreas boosted [David Heinemeir Hansson](https://drewdevault.com/weird-guys/#dhh)’s tweets on DEI and the white supremacist “white replacement” theory,[[source]](https://x.com/awesomekling/status/1874518295350837401) and expressed solidarity with David’s persecution for his “banal, mainstream” positions, positions which include, for example, the forced expulsion of non-white people from the UK.[[source]](https://x.com/awesomekling/status/1969350008538370216) Ladybird and Andreas have received sponsorships from FUTO, Cloudflare, Shopify and 37signals (i.e. David Heinemier Hansson), Proton, Jetbrains, Sourcegraph, and others.[[source]](https://ladybird.org/#sponsors) #### Brendan Eich **Known for**: Mozilla co-founder, Brave browser Brendan got a lot of flack several years ago, resigning as Mozilla CEO, after he donated a few thousand dollars to support California’s Proposition 8, an initiative that would have banned same-sex marriage in California.[[source]](https://web.archive.org/web/20200425070742/https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/03/28/three-mozilla-board-members-resign-over-choice-of-new-ceo/) After Mozilla, he moved on to co-found and lead as CEO the Brave Browser, which he used to push his own cryptocurrency micro-payments system.[[source]](https://web.archive.org/web/20200725110058/https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/01/brave-ico-35-million-30-seconds-brendan-eich/) He used Brave to support the hate website Kiwi Farms, which has been alleged to have instigated several suicides as a result of their harassment, working with their site admins to pose Brave as a safe and secure means for their members to access the site and conduct their harassment.[[source]](https://samambreen.wordpress.com/2019/08/16/an-open-letter-to-brendan-eich/) Kiwi Farms also took advantage of Brave’s crypto scheme for funding, which was brought to Eich’s attention and never corrected.[[source]](https://www.change.org/p/brendan-eich-brave-software-stop-providing-a-revenue-stream-for-white-supremacist-paedophiles) #### Bryan Lunduke **Known for**: The Lunduke Journal, “Linux Sucks” Bryan is a prolific YouTube personality, maintains a personal blog, and frequently tweets on his X account, using all of these platforms to push “anti-woke” ideas and conspiracy theories, and harass anyone he views as too progressive, trans, female, or black. Big fan of RedHat DEI conspiracy theories. Has a huge problem with transgender people and goes out of his way to harass them, misgender them, deadname them, the works. #### Daniel J. Bernstein **Known for**: Popular cryptographic algorithms, e.g. Salsa20, ed25519 Daniel is an well-known and influential cryptographer and former visiting professor at TU/Eindhoven,[[source]](https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Daniel-J-Bernstein-69944562) where he has worked with his wife, Tanja Lange, the chair of the coding theory and cryptology group there.[[source]](https://cc.win.tue.nl/staff.html) Daniel and Tanja are associates of [Jacob Appelbaum](https://drewdevault.com/weird-guys/#jacob-appelbaum) and served as his PhD advisors.[[source]](https://research.tue.nl/en/persons/jacob-r-appelbaum/supervised-student-theses/)[[source]](https://www.hyperelliptic.org/tanja/students.html) One of the students under Bernstein and Lange at TU/e, Henry de Valence, resigned from their PhD program in 2016 citing patterns of harassment, abuse, and bullying at the hands of Jacob, Daniel, and Tanja.[[source]](https://medium.com/@hdevalence/when-hell-kept-on-payroll-somewhere-is-where-you-are-f419d3022d0) #### David Heinemeier Hansson **Known for**: Ruby on Rails, Omarchy (founder); 37signals (CTO); Shopify (Board member) David, aka “DHH”, is a multi-millionare who funds and boosts the “dark enlightenment” in FOSS. His Linux distribution, Omarchy, is a loose collection of vibe-coded scripts on top Arch Linux and a vehicle for soliciting investments from large companies (e.g. Cloudflare, Framework, Dell, Block, Dropbox)[[source]](https://omarchy.org/news/2026/08/omacom-foundation-launches-with-8-million/) to finance the projects of his weird little friends. He wrote a blog post, “As I remember London”,[[source]](https://web.archive.org/web/20260401205851/https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64) in which he uses numerous racist, fascist, and ethno-nationalist dog-whistles while calling for the ethnic cleansing via forced removal of non-white people from the UK and other countries. The Ruby on Rails leadership stood by David in spite of numerous calls for his removal from positions of power by members of the community.[[source]](https://davidcel.is/articles/the-dhh-problem)[[source]](https://tekin.co.uk/2025/09/the-ruby-community-has-a-dhh-problem) #### Eric S. Raymond **Known for**: Open Source Initiative (disgraced co-founder); “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” Eric is a creepy weird guy who writes racist, homophobic, and misogynist screeds everywhere he can. His uses his blog, “Armed and Dangerous; Sex, software, politics, and firearms. Life’s simple pleasures…”, to advocate for weird right-wing politics, such as strident support for Kyle Rittenhouse[[source]](https://web.archive.org/web/20260313003028/http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8752) and threatening to shoot communists[[source]](https://web.archive.org/web/20260411015133/http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8685). He said gay men deserved to get AIDS because of “unfettered promiscuity”,[[source]](https://web.archive.org/web/20061207053952/http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=26) quotes racist talking points about police violence,[[source]](https://web.archive.org/web/20190217144805/http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7239) and says organizations that try to get women more involved in FOSS are trying to entrap men with rape accusations.[[source]](https://web.archive.org/web/20170804102904/http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6907) Eric got kicked out of the OSI mailing lists for being a huge asshole back in 2020.[[source]](https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/2020-February/021328.html) #### Enrico Weigelt **Known for**: Xlibre (founder) Enrico, aka “metux”, is the founder of the Xlibre project, a fork of Xorg. Took the Wayland/RedHat DEI conspiracy theory to its natural conclusion by making an unwoke fork of the deprecated Xserver project to keep it alive. The code of conduct is just “404” in a text file, and the README has been cleaned up but was initially mostly just a rant about the RedHat DEI big-tech conspiracy theory.[[source]](https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver/commit/4839966900d948c5793064b5dccbdb3fd35f558b) The Xlibre community is radically inclusive, which is to say, a huge circlejerk of open Nazis and bigots with no moderation. #### Eron Wolf **Known for**: FUTO Eron is the modestly wealthy founder of FUTO, an organization that funds software projects. He doesn’t like the Open Source Definition[[source]](https://web.archive.org/web/20251022160356/https://futo.org/about/futo-statement-on-opensource/) and cites other weird little guys like [Bryan Lunduke](https://drewdevault.com/weird-guys/#lunduke) and [Eric S. Raymond](https://drewdevault.com/weird-guys/#esr) to make his case. Eron is friends with Curtis Yarvin, a notable techno-fascist and influence on JD Vance, and invited Curtis onto FUTO’s platform for an interview in 2023.[[source]](https://peertube.futo.org/w/eSzKtjupL928QzxPXC5k2R) Associate of Louis Rossmann. #### Jacob Appelbaum **Known for**: Tor (former contributor), Freedom of the Press Foundation (former TAB member) Jacob is a cryptography and computer security researcher and disgraced ex-member of the Tor project. In 2016 ten people came forward to present serious accusations of sexual harassment, assault, and rape,[[source]](https://web.archive.org/web/20160910001406/http://jacobappelbaum.net/) ultimately leading this removal from the Tor project,[[source]](https://web.archive.org/web/20160623104201/http://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/open-source/73415-security-expert-appelbaum-no-longer-part-of-debian.html) Debian,[[source]](https://web.archive.org/web/20190820150807/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/technology/tor-project-jacob-appelbaum.html) and the hackerspace he co-founded, Noisebridge.[[source]](https://blog.noisebridge.net/post/145728465358/noisebridge-statement-on-jacob-appelbaum) He still works quietly and mostly out of the public view at TU/Eindhoven[[source]](https://cc.win.tue.nl/staff.html) and has been rumoured to pop up at events around Berlin in recent years. He is currently working on the Vula network encryption scheme,[[source]](https://codeberg.org/vula/highctidh/commits/branch/main) which is funded by NLnet.[[source]](https://nlnet.nl/project/Vula/) #### Michael B. Paulson **Known for**: ThePrimeagen Twitch/YouTube accounts Popular Twitch streamer and YouTube personality whose content isn’t all that weird, but who is publicly associated with a bunch of weirdos this list. He’s a speaker at Omacon 2026, [David Heinemeier Hansson](https://drewdevault.com/weird-guys/#dhh)’s conference for fashy weirdos,[[source]](https://web.archive.org/web/20260810191341/https://www.omacon.org/) and a donor to [Andreas Kling](https://drewdevault.com/weird-guys/#kling)’s Ladybird,[[source]](https://ladybird.org/#sponsors) and otherwise maintains associations with and financially supports people in a little network of weirdos. #### Richard M. Stallman **Known for**: Free Software Foundation, GNU, GCC Founder of the Free Software Foundation and one of the most important figures in getting this whole thing off of the ground. Also the subject of credible rumors of harassing a lot of women over the years, and frequently writes on his website in defense of rapists, sexual harassment, sexual exploitation of minors, distribution of child sexual abuse material, and even bestiality and necrophilia. Stallman’s behavior is extensively covered in The Stallman Report.[[source]](https://stallman-report.org/) #### Vaxry **Known for**: Hyprland Vaxry is the “edgy” founder and maintainer of the Hyprland Wayland compositor. He oversees a toxic community and participates in hate and bigotry, particularly towards LGBTQ+ folks.[[source]](https://web.archive.org/web/20250306212807/https://blog.vaxry.net/resource/articleFDO/RHMails.pdf) Downplayed an incident where moderators of his Discord server changed the pronouns of a trans person to deliberately misgender them, saying “on the Internet, let’s be real, [he] is the default”.[[source]](https://youtube.com/watch?v=nskemNa_Kn4) Got banned from Free Desktop after losing his shit when they privately warned him not to be a toxic jerk in their community spaces.[[source]](https://web.archive.org/web/20250306212807/https://blog.vaxry.net/resource/articleFDO/RHMails.pdf) Hates codes of conduct and inclusively in FOSS.[[source]](https://blog.vaxry.net/articles/2023-inclusiveActivists) Funded by Framework,[[source]](https://frame.work/nl/en/blog/framework-sponsorships) speaker at [David Heinemeir Hansson](https://drewdevault.com/weird-guys/#dhh)’s Omacon 2026.[[source]](https://web.archive.org/web/20260810191341/https://www.omacon.org/) #### See also * [~rabbits/fashware](https://git.sr.ht/~rabbits/fashware) Artwork by [@[email protected]](https://hj.9fs.net/p), Weird Little Guys of FOSS, Drew DeVault, 01m1pp6a2z3g7zd042bh9srfdt.