As can be expected, as far as a laptop company can be, sure?

Overall, realistically? no

The right question should be “Is it consumer friendly” And it is.

There are no ethical large computer manufacturers. Framework, like its competitors, financially supports unethical people, and projects, and there’s no such thing as an end-to-end ethical supply chain right now.

People want Framework to be ethical because they champion repairability, and on a relative scale, you could do a lot worse. But that’s also the problem. Most people buying a new MacBook or ThinkPad never think about ethics. Framework puts ethics front and center, then drops the ball the moment you dig deeper than repairability.

If you want to buy “ethically,” your best option is used. The device was still made unethically, by a company that funded abhorrent causes, and the seller will likely reinvest your money into the very ecosystem you’re trying to avoid. But at least you kept something out of a landfill a little longer, and put one more degree of Kevin Bacon between yourself and the worst of it.

To keep things in perspective, Framework is probably less unethical than most manufacturers, and they’re doing more for repairability than most. And even Doug Forcett wasn’t good enough for the Good Place, so you know… you have to draw your own lines.

In my opinion, Framework is more ethical that most in the industry. Think companies like Apple, HP, Dell, etc. who are generally quite anti-consumer. For example, Apple’s parts pairing and closed ecosystem, HP’s lockdown of their printers. There are plenty of more examples to look for, turns out humongous for-profit corporations driven by money like money go up more than happy consumers.

Whether Framework “ethical” outright I’m not sure. They support right-to-repair and interact with the community more. They share CAD files of their products so that people can make their own accessories and such, they are working with many Linux distros to improve compatibility, etc. I personally find the backwards compatibility of parts of their devices really impressive. So definitely, more ethical than most.

However, they, like a majority of companies, are not focused on improving working conditions in factories, they are not necessarily using fair materials, etc. Additionally, the support of Omarchy is problematic. In a nutshell, Omarchy is pretty much a preconfigured Arch that DHH likes. The controversy is that this DHH is an insane alt-right guy, anti-immigrant, transphobic, homophobic, white supremecist, all that. The direct support (particularly on social media) of Omarchy is seen as an endorsement of DHH, when you go to Omarchy’s website, DHH’s name is right there. This obviously isn’t a good look for Framework, and they hammered in the idea that they are a “big tent”, implying that they are okay with DHH’s views. Point have also been made that Omarchy is a very new distribution with a small userbase.

Source I found in a quick search: https://gardinerbryant.com/the-omarchy-framework-thing/ (13th Oct 2025)

Note that Framework is not currently sponsoring Omarchy: https://frame.work/blog/framework-sponsorships (I am unsure whether they originally did, or if was just the social media promotion)

Other companies support their own fair share of far-right lunatics, but that doesn’t make it ethical for Framework to do so of course.

edit:

TLDR: Framework is not ethical, but I would say it’s more ethical than other companies due to their support for right-to-repair, interaction with the community, and transparency on their sponsorships. It’s not a nice world out there, but Framework is one of the better ones.

I think context matters here. There currently isn’t any outwardly unethical behavior on their behalf and they’re building products that are designed to be maintained and upgraded, which is a big step forward when you consider things like e-waste and protecting the environment. Those products still contain materials that through mining or producing, result in pollution and potentially underpaid labor in large factories.

I would say the scales tip to them being currently more ethical than competitors in the same space. That could change at any time and I’m sure there’s stuff we don’t know that some would frown upon.

What defines an ethical company?

I’d say no for the reason that they are not a worker owned cooperative.

I don’t think any company that essentially operates like a top-down, undemocratic dictatorship (which is how the vast majority of companies operate) can be considered ethical.

No, there’s no such thing as a truey ethical company. Its only various shades of acceptable. Personally any company developing electronics, or working with computers is unethical by the nature of what is required to create them. With no expections. But it’s an acceptable evil as there’s no way to willfully work in the industry ethically at the moment. Framework at least tries to minimize the harm they cause but they still cause plenty of harm.

But it’s entirely based on your own morality. If you must ask others if a company is ethical, then you do not out line what you define as ethical. Then you are too ignorant of your own morals.

You should sit down and go actually fucking learn what you deem ethical and do the research yourself on if a company is ethical. Or at least bring definitions to the table when you ask others.

Ethics and morals for the most part are a nuanced debate since vary rarely are things so black and white that you can condem people out right.

So the question then is. The actual fuck do you define as ethical?