Linux for People Who Love Macs

What just happened

DHH — the guy who built Basecamp and has been very vocal about leaving Apple's ecosystem — has been quietly crafting his own version of Linux for the past couple of years. It's called Omarchy, and it looks and feels like macOS, except it belongs entirely to you. No subscriptions. No terms that change overnight. No Apple telling you what you can run on your own machine.

This week, eight people — including Jack Dorsey, the founders of Shopify and Stripe, and DHH himself — each put in $1 million to create the Omarchy Foundation. That's $8 million to make sure this thing keeps going, stays independent, and doesn't quietly disappear.

Why a business owner should care

Most of us don't choose our tools — we inherit them. MacBooks are the default because they're beautiful and they work. But beautiful doesn't mean free. Every year Apple tightens what you can do, what you can install, and where your data lives.

Omarchy is a real alternative for the people on your team who want out of that. And when serious people write serious cheques, it signals something: this isn't a weekend hobby anymore.

Worth watching

You probably won't switch your whole team tomorrow. But the next time you're thinking about what laptops to buy, or how much your stack actually belongs to you — this is worth remembering.

Words worth knowing

Linux — A free operating system that runs most of the internet's servers. It's the engine under the hood of a lot of things you already use.

Open source — Software where anyone can read, copy, or improve the code. Think of it like a recipe that's publicly shared — no secret ingredients.

Distribution (distro) — A flavour of Linux. Like different restaurants using the same open recipe but serving it their own way.

Non-profit foundation — A formal organisation set up to steward a project long-term, without needing to make money from it.