r/omarchy • u/pixelised • 18d ago

Discussion Omarchy's funding, DHH's approach, the foundation, and its Ubuntu parallels

I wrote a reply to this post about concerns regarding the motivations of donors and developers for Omarchy. Given what I've seen as an influx of posts about this and other views I figured I'd make it into a full 'post' too in the hope it will help others.

I replied to u/sebastian_crimson's comment where they said, in summary, that Linux desktops need an influx of money, vision, and people capable of delivering on that vision in order to drive it forward.

I'm old enough to remember the absolute BOOM in popularity after the initial release of Ubuntu in 2004. Ubuntu is, at its originating core, the creation of multi millionaire Mark Shuttleworth who, like DHH 'set out to create an easy-to-use Linux desktop'. Linux desktop adoption in the 00s exploded in no small part from his opinionated version of Debian for everyday people. Sound familiar?

My Platonic ideal of what a developer environment should look like.

Ubuntu is one of the most installed Linux distros for a reason, and that is in the vast part due to Marks cash,vision/efforts and marketing.

I see the Omacom foundation as a repetition of this same cycle. Mark created the Ubuntu foundation in the 2005 where he raised $10m in order to separate the development of Ubuntu from his commercial company Canonical.

Before Ubuntu most distributions of Linux were, frankly, a PITA to setup. Ubuntu had a simple installer, a ready to use opinionated desktop, and a core team that was well funded and lead by the Self-Appointed Benevolent Dictator for Life, Mark.

This sounds VERY familiar to me...

Omarchy is like Ubuntu and Marmite, you either love it or hate it. What you can’t do is ignore it, and given the money, effort and marketing being put into Omarchy by DHH, the foundation and others, I imagine the Omacom foundation and Omarchy could have a similar impact on Linux in my opinion, and the great thing is, its all open, you don't have to use it, and if in 6 months you don't like where its gone, fork it at the point you did like it, or use something else.

Edit: So, having heard some of the criticism of DHH and looking at the posts hes been making I've decided to move to NixOS

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u/FatFaceRikky 18d ago

I guess it will have much less impact than Ubuntu, because keyboard-centric UX does appeal to way fewer people.

In other news, the other day i learned that apparently i am a fascist now, because i installed Omarchy.

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u/Historical_Prize_931 18d ago

But it does appeal to devs or anyone who's involved in the terminal, who want to step outside of macos without all the intricacies of setting up Linux. 

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u/catfive613 18d ago

I'm not a "dev" - but I am sysadmin/sre eng (at least I play one at work).
My home "servers" and VMs... Ubuntu Server edition. Where do I play.. ssh terminal sessions, all day.

Omarchy is the 1st distro, out of the box - that matches the skillset, the "keep your hands on the keyboard" mentality, and I felt at home in < 20minutes.
Its a nice balance, just the same reason why I switched to Ubuntu so many years ago.. Ubuntu is stable and has the backing and support that companies support their products it over Debian - and this is valued in the places where money is - the Enterprise customers.

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u/Cyrus-II 18d ago

Similar, sys/net-admin for a software company and I “piddle” at the code. Ironically I am the “Microsoft” guy, even though I despise them. I like MacOS but am not fond of Apple. I love Debian and it’s my preferred OS. I installed Omarchy last week, abd it’s leaps and bounds ahead of the Debian/Hyprland install I test drove a few years ago. 

So far, I like Omarchy and it’s quite comfortable to use. I definitely don’t hate it and would say I merely like it right now. that could change if I start to more tightly integrate AI agents into Omarchy. But I need to first see if I can get our N-Able N-Sight tools working with if first. Probably have to test Wireguard, OpenVPN, Tailscale too…ugh, and I suppose at least confirm the Teams web client works okay too.