Omarchy Linux Just Got $8 Million From Tech's Biggest Names

https://itsfoss.com/news/omarchy-launches-omacom-foundation/

Slop Linux got money to spend and the reactionary ----- is the first one to get it.

David Heinemeier Hansson, aka DHH, has put a number on how serious he is about desktop Linux. That number is eight million dollars, and it's going into a brand new nonprofit called the Omacom Foundation.

DHH is incorporating the foundation now, set to cover the Omarchy trademark, its infrastructure and hosting, promotion for the project, and funding for the open source developers whose work it depends on.

He calls it a "moral obligation," not just to get Omarchy into more people's hands but to change how they use a computer in the first place.

The above is so Google-in-early-days-vibes coded that one has to think they should know by now that nobody is buying it. Except that the gen alpha has the attention span of a flea and doesn't really read anything nor it's interested in History. So those techy bozos will always find new prey.

Michael Dell of Dell Technologies, Patrick Collison of Stripe, Tobi Lütke of Shopify, Jack Dorsey of Block, Matthew Prince of Cloudflare, Jason Fried of 37signals, Brendan Iribe of Sesame, and DHH himself each put in a million dollars to make it happen.

People already like using Omarchy, DHH says, and he wants this money to last as long as possible instead of getting spent all at once while also making the most out of it.

There are two major updates to this. Omacom funding has hit $10 million, and it has become a premier sponsor for Quickshell.

Hyprland first to gain

Hyprland is the first project outside Omarchy to see any of this money. Omacom is extending an exclusive sponsorship to support Vaxry, the developer behind the Wayland compositor Omarchy runs on.

Under this, he is locked into an agreement for three years, with the possibility of extending for two more years.

This way Vaxry gets to work on Hyprland full time without needing to think about the money. As part of this arrangement, the €5/month Hyprperks subscription service will be discontinued, and everything offered under it will be provided for free.

DHH also joked about finding Vaxry a pookie, noting that:

Many thanks to 37signals (hello self! 😂), Butterfly, and Framework for helping Hyprland get to this point. Thrilled that the Omacom Foundation can take over from October 10, and give one of the best developers in this new Linux moment the chance to go all-in.

(* This deal does not include any direct assistance in getting Vaxry a girlfriend, but I’ll personally be available as a reference for any inquiries on the matter.*)

I'll feel bad for any girl taking her chances.

Do you remember this?

This isn't the first time we are talking about money and Hyprland. Back in 2025, Framework became a Gold tier sponsor of the project. But that didn't sit too well with many people, as soon after, a thread titled "Framework supporting far-right racists?" came up on the official forum.

The original poster called out Vaxry's old freedesktop.org ban and pushed Framework to explain why it was funding the project. Framework's own account made things worse that same day. It posted a tweet comparing Omarchy to the old Windows XP product key meme, and people read that as an endorsement of DHH.

While Framework did send hardware to people at Omarchy, the project itself never got any direct funding. Later, Framework had to start publishing a running list of its sponsorships after people kept asking exactly who the company was funding and why.

Where Omarchy's headed

Quattro, Omarchy's newest release, shipped recently, building AI agents into the desktop by default instead of treating them as an extra. While none of the eight patrons have said publicly that Omarchy's AI bet factored into their decision to back the foundation.

My read is that it's hard to ignore, especially with Michael Dell's company betting heavily on AI infrastructure elsewhere. A distro built around AI agents is exactly the kind of bet a company selling AI hardware would want to back.

And it all ties into what DHH said about truly democratizing Linux.

Whether that $8 million and a nonprofit structure are what bring about the "year of the Linux desktop" is a question for another time.

151 points · 82 comments · view on lemmy.world

82 Comments

umbrella@lemmy.ml · 130 pts · 21h (7 replies)

that one spearheaded by a fascist?

mustbe3to20signs@feddit.org · 68 pts · 21h (4 replies)

"Do you know how little it narrows this down"-meme here

eremophila@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 20h (3 replies)

I'm just going to assume they are referring to earth at this stage

alastel@lemmy.ml · 17 pts · 20h (2 replies)

They're referring to the Rails guy.

eremophila@lemmy.zip · 11 pts · 20h (1 reply)

the fat controller from thomas the tank engine?

daggermoon@piefed.world · 2 pts · 17h (1 reply)
[ removed ]
umbrella@lemmy.ml · 12 pts · 8h

dude proeminently posted a big rant on his blog about how there are too many brown immigrants in london, and it's losing its purity or something.

plus more or his horrible commentary here and there.

frazw@lemmy.world · 95 pts · 21h

Omarchy will henceforth be known as Oligarchy Linux.

FreddiesLantern@leminal.space · 69 pts · 20h

Quick read of his wiki... yeah no thx. The linux world is good as is without these kinda obvious red flags.

wotaku@discuss.tchncs.de · 44 pts · 19h

So much for an arch rice with horrible decisions on everything?

somegeek@programming.dev · 43 pts · 18h (2 replies)

I'll get over it if they split the money to all the projects that they depend on.

Arch, curl, ffmpeg, and every tiny thing that needs more funding.

SocialistVibes01@lemmy.ml · 59 pts · 17h (1 reply)

Nothing good will come from this. Fascists aren't the partners that the FLOSS movement needs.

Man... We do need to do some agitprop among Arch users. They have so much to learn and from hearsay the current meta is that they like to study, amiright?

eldavi@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 8h

Fascists aren’t the partners that the FLOSS movement needs.

the liberatrian right seems to have a stranglehold over the linux eco system because of it's labor aristrocratic foundation and i'm pessimistic that, that will ever change.

LiveLM@lemmy.zip · 36 pts · 11h (4 replies)

I checked the release notes of the new release out of curiosity and:

  • Stop a video title from becoming the Download Video play command
  • Stop an installed theme from running code
  • Don't put the user in the docker group; make it opt-in
  • Stop USB device names from being executed as Hyprland Lua

Lmao. Nope.

yxc999@lemmy.ml · 19 pts · 9h (3 replies)

Brother, how on earth does a USB execute as a goddamn DE? I couldn't implement that bug if I wanted to.

baguettefish@discuss.tchncs.de · 15 pts · 7h

✨ AI slop ✨

thingsiplay@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 9h

I couldn’t implement that bug if I wanted to.

Skill issues. :p Just joking, I have no idea too.

TrollAccount69@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 7h

Deserialization error.

thingsiplay@lemmy.ml · 34 pts · 14h (1 reply)

According to this blog post, Omarchy has lot of security issues: https://blog.happyfellow.dev/merchants-of-insecurity/

Moonrise2473@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 5h

There are bangers like video title bash injection or all notifications being able to run arbitrary bash on your machine.

Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml · 32 pts · 8h (2 replies)

Was this the guy who had that blog post about Europe being "ruined" by immigrants?

homik@slrpnk.net · 19 pts · 8h

Is. Has. Now with increased sponsorship.

geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 4h

That explains how he suddenly got all these billionaires funding him. Who are definitely not the problem but the immigrants stealing your cookie

inari@piefed.zip · 31 pts · 21h (5 replies)

I wonder if this is why NetworkChuck put out a video recently on Omarchy. Maybe an undisclosed sponsorship?

lepinkainen@lemmy.world · 39 pts · 20h (3 replies)

He’s a religious nut, so wouldn’t put it past him.

harmbugler@piefed.social · 12 pts · 18h

And don't worry, Chuck will drop it in a minute and move onto the next shiny thing.

comrademiao@piefed.social · -3 pts · 15h (1 reply)

Is that the coffee guy?

What do you mean by religious nut? Do you mean hateful or simply religious? Implying the latter isn’t okay dawg.

It does seem a high percentage of older tech workers and creators are super religious to the point of harming others. Another example being Jeff

inari@piefed.zip · 1 pts · 5h

Jeff Geerling? What happened?

DaTingGoBrrr@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 11h

It wasn't long after the news of Omarchy funding hit media that NetworkChuck started shilling for it. I am no longer a subscriber

anon_8675309@lemmy.world · 28 pts · 15h (1 reply)

Wait what? Isn’t this just a set of scripts?

Wtf?

thingsiplay@lemmy.ml · 15 pts · 14h

Apparently its no longer just a modification script collection. Its elevated to a distribution, as it has its own iso and can be installed without Archlinux to install before, has its own set of apps and repositories. Just learned this recently too. I don't like Omarchy, but we have to be fair in calling what it is.

uuj8za@piefed.social · 25 pts · 14h (5 replies)

Is Framework still sponsoring this guy? (Yes, gifting hardware counts as sponsoring.)

Kirk@startrek.website · -11 pts · 9h (4 replies)

I heard he got a coupon for a free soda at Burger King with purchase of an extra large value meal

orc_princess@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 7h (3 replies)

Right, because a coupon for something worth cents is exactly the same as a several hundred bucks worth of hardware plus shipment...

Kirk@startrek.website · -6 pts · 6h (2 replies)

holy shit shipment too wow

orc_princess@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 6h (1 reply)

take the L and move on, no need to make us cringe more lol

Kirk@startrek.website · -5 pts · 6h

lick the boot harder then

Lanske@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 10h

DHH is a twat. Would never use this distro. At least we have so many good distro's to choose from!

jdr@lemmy.ml · 14 pts · 19h (1 reply)

Matthew, Prince of Cloudflare

SocialistVibes01@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 19h

Yes, the most fearsome among them, I'd say

PrimeErective@startrek.website · 10 pts · 6h

Aha, so this must be the inspo for the post about Disney donating $8m to Hannah Montana Linux

Doomsider@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3h

We put AI in charge of a Linux distro to see what happens.

liberatedGuy@lemmy.ml · -7 pts · 8h

I am happy about it. I don't care about Omarchy as I am a Debian and Mint user but I am hoping hyprland and quickshell keep improving. We need to draw DHH's attention to desktop Linux accessibility next. That area needs a lot of funding and work needs to be done.

hobata@lemmy.ml · -92 pts · 21h (39 replies)

I'm happy for them. I have a feeling that if the money had gone to gnome or kde, it would have been wasted.

anyhow2503@lemmy.world · 79 pts · 20h (27 replies)

As opposed to giving it to an Arch install script and dotfile collection promoted by a fascist and used by people with shit taste? Please tell me this is really poor bait.

SocialistVibes01@lemmy.ml · 30 pts · 20h (1 reply)

If it's irony then it's landed pretty poorly

anyhow2503@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 20h

Considering the rest of their comment history I'm starting to lean more towards "incredibly out of touch".

hobata@lemmy.ml · -31 pts · 20h (24 replies)

first of all, hyprland plays a big role here, so this would be a good thing for that project. out of everything that has been going on lately, this is one of the more interesting ones. arch is also involved, which is a great project too, and it would benefit from this as well. the other stuff you mentioned doesn't trigger me, don't worry.

anyhow2503@lemmy.world · 32 pts · 18h

hyprland plays a big role here, so this would be a good thing for that project. out of everything that has been going on lately, this is one of the more interesting ones.

Hyprland and their discord server full of bigots can suck my left nut. There must not be much going on lately if yet another tiling compositor is that interesting.

arch is also involved, which is a great project too, and it would benefit from this as well.

It's literally someones preconfigured Arch rice. Arch has been around for years before the tech oligarchs were even aware that the wider linux community existed. You're very trusting that this money, which has been given to omarchy primarily because of their AI agent support, will end up funding any of the actually useful software behind it. I'm guessing most of it goes to marketing with some amount set aside to buy a mail-order bride for the hyprland dev or whatever the fuck that dipshit was talking about.

the other stuff you mentioned doesn't trigger me, don't worry.

Yeah, don't worry I got that fascist sympathizer vibe after deciphering some of your other comments.

SocialistVibes01@lemmy.ml · 21 pts · 20h (21 replies)

Everything is fair game if Arch is involved, even Nazi Linux.

hobata@lemmy.ml · -30 pts · 20h (20 replies)

everything is nazi nowadays?

IEatDaFeesh@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 19h (14 replies)

He's a white replacement theory guy who wishes Britain could go back to its "old culture." Maybe not specifically a Nazi because he hasn't promoted the death of an ethnic group, but he certainly is a racist and dispises immigrants.

hobata@lemmy.ml · -19 pts · 19h (4 replies)
[ removed ]
SocialistVibes01@lemmy.ml · 16 pts · 18h

Are you dropping a freaking George Orwell reference? 🤦‍♂️

zecg@lemmy.world · -21 pts · 18h (8 replies)

What the fuck does that have to do with the Linux distro? Many everyday products you use are made by people you don't agree with. It's called society.

IEatDaFeesh@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 16h

I'm just explaining what the creator of Omarchy (a Linux distro) believes and why people call him a Nazi. Technically they're wrong but he's still a massive racist. I think that Britain post is still up on his website which means he's sticking to his racist beliefs and people don't like racists. That's all.

rzadkie@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 15h

You can disagree over dietary preferences not over "is hitler in my supply chain a problem?".

SocialistVibes01@lemmy.ml · 14 pts · 15h

it's called society

muh free speech

Nazis must be squashed

daggermoon@piefed.world · 18 pts · 18h

What kind of .ml user are you?

SocialistVibes01@lemmy.ml · 13 pts · 20h (2 replies)

nowadays

🧑‍🚀🔫🧑‍🚀

I'd guess you don't even get that some of the most fearsome Nazis nowadays are German Polish Ashkenazim. Crazy, right?

Let's take it easy with that marijuana a little bit, will ya?

hobata@lemmy.ml · -23 pts · 19h (1 reply)

oh sweet summer child, i lived a couple of years in ukraine.

SocialistVibes01@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 18h

They learned from the worst. If we're making rankings, there are the Northern Europeans

communism@lemmy.ml · 10 pts · 10h

I don't know about Nazi specifically, but people often use Nazi to mean fascist in general. And he is definitely far-right. I would prefer that foss remain hostile to fascists.

rzadkie@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 15h

I'll rather trust gentoo folks

And I dunno, the most interesting feature of hitlerland is that somehow this fucking insert many other slurs kkkrakkker is able to break config on every other update. Muh innovation.

lukalix98@programming.dev · 38 pts · 18h

This has to be satire right?

ComradePedro@lemmy.ml · 24 pts · 15h

If Gnome or KDE had gotten the money, important contributions would’ve been made to the Linux ecosystem, cause that’s what they do. Oligarchy Linux will at best contribute with nothing useful.

warmaster@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 21h (2 replies)

KDE? How so?

hobata@lemmy.ml · -31 pts · 21h (1 reply)

"everything that came after 3.5 was a mistake"

jdr@lemmy.ml · -9 pts · 19h

Factually correct, politically unspeakable

SocialistVibes01@lemmy.ml · 15 pts · 21h (5 replies)

Budgie, Cinnamon, Cosmic, Xfce?

hobata@lemmy.ml · -32 pts · 21h (4 replies)

budgie, cinnamon, and xfce are pretty much stagnant or finished. money would not make a difference there, honestly. cosmic is a different story. they are probably fine without external funding, but a little extra would not hurt.

Quazatron@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 16h (3 replies)

You have much to learn about how things work in FLOSS.

Projects don't die because you and your cool friends decided that they are old news. They will live on as long as there are users and developers interested in keeping them going. There are countless examples, I'm sure you can find some if you get past your short sightedness.

provectus@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 5h (2 replies)

Projects don't die because you and your cool friends decided that they are old news.

I think he is saying that xfce, budgie, and cinnamon served their purpose, and that there will be nothing innovative of them if we invested more money in them. I only agree with him on xfce, and not cinnamon and budgie. Xfce has been the same experience for a long time.

SocialistVibes01@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 4h (1 reply)

Xfce is implementing Wayland right now

provectus@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 33m

I am aware that someone is implementing wayland in xfce, but that does not change the UX of xfce. I probably will not feel a difference in using wayland xfce compared to X11 xfce.