1Password Lands in Hot Water Over Donation to DHH's Distro

1Password, the company behind the popular password manager, has found itself at the center of a controversy after announcing a $300,000 contribution in support of the Omacom foundation — the nonprofit that stewards the Omarchy Linux distribution. The move made the firm an “honorary corporate patron” of the project, which is spearheaded by Danish entrepreneur David Heinemeier Hansson, better known as DHH.

DHH is the creator of Ruby on Rails, Basecamp, and the email client Hey. He describes Omarchy as an “opinionated” take on Linux: an Arch-based distribution with a set of applications installed by default — “Linux the way its author himself likes it.” According to 1Password's head, the system has grown into the second most popular distribution among the company's customers.

Why the backlash erupted

The problem isn't the distribution itself but the public statements of its creator. DHH regularly publishes sharp screeds against vaccination and immigrants. In a July post titled “Wolves, sheep, and gypsies,” he compares migrants to wolves and proposes “deporting” those who, in his view, “take over public spaces.” One viral post flatly accused 1Password of “supporting the ethnic cleansing of Europe,” and users on social media set about hunting for alternative password managers.

The reaction should hardly have come as a surprise: back in 2023, Duke University's libraries dropped Basecamp, citing the “harm” emanating from the leadership of its parent company, 37signals.

A rift inside the company

Discontent also arose among 1Password's employees. CEO David Faugno and co-founder Roustem Karimov sent out internal messages in an attempt to smooth things over. Karimov urged people not to “claim a monopoly on moral righteousness” and not to hound those who hold different views. Faugno took a different tack, stating that the company “does not condone hateful, dehumanizing, or exclusionary views, including those publicly expressed by DHH.”

At the same time, management stresses that the contribution was made “to the Omacom foundation, not to a specific individual,” and is not an endorsement of the founder's personal stance. Judging by the dozens of emoji reactions in the internal Slack, these explanations failed to convince employees. The company promised to discuss the situation at an all-hands meeting.

Curiously, 1Password found itself in notable company: among the twelve “founding fathers” of the foundation, who each contributed $1 million, are Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, Michael Dell, Jack Dorsey, and Shopify founder Tobias Lütke. DHH himself donated another $1 million. The company did not respond to The Verge's requests for comment.

Source: The Verge