Weird little guys of FOSS

Table of contents Alex Gleason Andreas Kling Andy Yen Brendan Eich Bryan Lunduke Curtis Yarvin Daniel Berntsson Daniel J. Bernstein David Heinemeier Hansson Enrico Weigelt Eric S. Raymond Eron Wolf Evgeny Poberezkin Fiatjaf Guillermo Rauch Jack Dorsey Jacob Appelbaum Jeff Geerling Justin M. Keyes Laslo Hunhold Louis Rossmann Michael B. Paulson Rafał Kucharski Richard M. Stallman Tobias Lütke Vincent Canfield This is a list of weird little guys in the free software movement and adjacent spaces. Request additions, removals, or changes via email; patches welcome.Don’t harass these people! Don’t engage with them at all.An RSS feed for this page is available.Artwork by @p@hj.9fs.netFAQWhat is the criteria for being on this list?Weird, public politics, as judged by yours trulyLeader in their community or otherwise powerful/influentialInvolved in free and open source softwareBut that guy does good work!A lot of people on this list have done good work. A lot of people not on this list have done good work, too.See also: Violet Blue’s “But he does good work.”Will you write a “cool people” list, too?No. Who’s on the list or off the list will introduce weird social dynamics, and risks creating a kind of popularity contest. Also, if I published a list like that, it would paint a target on the backs of everyone on the list for harassment or worse.See also“Weird little guys”, a podcast hosted by Molly Conger that inspired the name of this list~rabbits/fashware Alex Gleason Known for: nostr stuffAlex 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] and was banned from the Mastodon instance he used back in 2023 for being openly transphobic.[source][source] Alex is financially supported by Jack Dorsey via the “andOtherStuff” collective.[source]This photo of him on the right is prominently displayed on his personal website. Added August 31, 2026 Andreas Kling Known for: SerenityOS, LadybirdAlias: AwesomeKlingAndreas is the founder of SerenityOS and the Ladybird web browser. He posted in support of Charlie Kirk after his assassination,[source] gets triggered by the phrase “punch nazis”,[source] and the idea of using gender-neutral pronouns in documentation.[source] Andreas boosted David Heinemeier Hansson’s tweets on DEI and the white supremacist “white replacement” theory,[source] 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 Europe.[source]Ladybird and Andreas have received sponsorships from FUTO, Cloudflare, Shopify and 37signals (i.e. David Heinemeier Hansson), Proton, Jetbrains, Sourcegraph, and others.[source] Added September 01, 2026 Andy Yen Known for: Proton founder (ProtonMail, Proton VPN, etc)Proton claims to be politically neutral, but in early 2025 Andy praised the Republican party on X,[source] and Proton issued an “official response” on Mastodon and Reddit (later deleted as “not actually official”) re-enforcing that Proton and/or Andy threw their hat in with Trump and the Republican party.[source]Proton financially supports Andreas Kling. Added September 04, 2026 Brendan Eich Known for: Mozilla co-founder, Brave browser, creator of JavaScriptBrendan 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]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] 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] Kiwi Farms also took advantage of Brave’s crypto scheme for funding, which was brought to Eich’s attention and never corrected.[source] Added August 31, 2026 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. Added August 31, 2026 Curtis Yarvin Known for: UrbitAlias: moldbugCurtis is the founder and on-again-off-again leader of the Urbit networking protocol project. He is also considered one of the founders of the mainstream neo-reactionary “dark enlightenment” movement which explicitly and deliberately aims to undermine democracy in Western countries.Curtis’s work has set the playbook for the American Republican party and a number of techno-fascists. Curtis is an associate of J.D. Vance, who cites him as an influence and arguably has Curtis to thank, in part, for his position as Vice President.[source] Peter Thiel, a key figure in the right-wing mass-surveillance company Palantir, known for enabling mass deportations in the United States, was also influenced by Curtis.[source]Curtis is an associate of Eron Wolf.[source] Added September 02, 2026 Daniel Berntsson Known for: Mullvad VPN (co-founder, co-owner)Daniel is the co-founder of Mullvad VPN, alongside Fredrik Strömberg. In June 2026, Daniel donated 5M Swedish Krona (~$500,000 USD) to the populist anti-immigration Örebro Party,[source] saying “it’s sad that it’s needed”. The party supports the ethnic cleansing of non-white people from Sweden, and Daniel’s donation represented, at the time, 72% of the party’s revenue. Daniel cited immigration as a motivating factor for his donation. Added September 01, 2026 Daniel J. Bernstein Known for: Popular cryptographic algorithms, e.g. Salsa20, ed25519; qmail, djbdnsAlias: djbDaniel is an well-known and influential cryptographer and former visiting professor at TU/Eindhoven,[source] where he has worked with his wife, Tanja Lange, the chair of the coding theory and cryptology group there.[source]Daniel and Tanja are associates of Jacob Appelbaum and served as his PhD advisors.[source][source] 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] Added August 31, 2026 David Heinemeier Hansson Known for: Ruby on Rails, Omarchy (founder); 37signals (CTO); Shopify (Board member)Alias: DHHDavid 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 (Jack Dorsey), Dropbox, 1password)[source][source] to finance the projects of his weird little friends.He wrote a blog post, “As I remember London”,[source] 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. Another of David’s posts, “Wolves, sheep, and gypsies”[source] compares Roma people to wolves and again calls for an ethnic cleansing.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][source] Added August 31, 2026 Enrico Weigelt Known for: Xlibre (founder)Alias: metuxEnrico 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]I dug up an email from Enrico back in 2018 where he goes on an incomprehensible rant blaming World War II on the allies, flirting with Holocaust denial and stating that Churchill should have been the first one prosecuted at Nuremberg.[source]The Xlibre community is radically inclusive, which is to say, a huge circlejerk of open Nazis and bigots with no moderation. Added August 31, 2026 Eric S. Raymond Known for: Open Source Initiative (disgraced co-founder); “The Cathedral and the Bazaar”Alias: esrEric 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] and threatening to shoot communists.[source] He said gay men deserved to get AIDS because of “unfettered promiscuity”,[source] quotes racist talking points about police violence,[source] and says organizations that try to get women more involved in FOSS are trying to entrap men with rape accusations.[source] See also Eric’s essay on “Preventing visceral racism”.[source]Eric got kicked out of the OSI mailing lists for being a huge asshole back in 2020.[source] Added August 31, 2026 Eron Wolf Known for: FUTOEron is the modestly wealthy founder of FUTO, an organization that funds software projects. He doesn’t like the Open Source Definition[source] and cites other weird little guys like Bryan Lunduke and Eric S. Raymond 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]Associate of Louis Rossmann. Added August 31, 2026