According to GamingOnLinux (opens in new tab), a fairly popular custom launcher project for Minecraft has been overthrown after the maintainer purged the project's other developers for "promoting radical left-wing queer ideology." With the project now under their exclusive control, the hijackers were free to push any updates they wanted without oversight, including malicious code.

The project "PolyMC" (opens in new tab) bills itself as a minecraft launcher focused on "predictability, long-term stability, and simplicity. Its goal is to provide users with an easy way to manage multiple different Minecraft installations on a single machine, each with its own mods, resources, and settings. Following yesterday's purge, current PolyMC users are being urged by the Minecraft Modding community to immediately stop using the launcher

.

To begin with, it is not at all clear which act of "leftist queer ideology" precipitated this bizarre coup. The only thing that the project's update to the purge, aptly named "reclaim polymc from the leftoids (opens in new tab)," did was to protect the project's users and participants from transphobic, homophobic, and racist abuse It was to remove the project's code of conduct, including its provisions.

While these provisions certainly seem like something that would infuriate someone with reactionary politics, the code of conduct had been in existence for many months. There is even a record from May where a developer who had just taken over the project insisted that the provisions explicitly protecting people based on things like gender identity and sexual orientation (opens in new tab) be removed, rather than unilaterally removed. It is unclear what it was that led the developer in question to abandon the project in the last few days.

It was initially thought that the hijackers' accounts themselves had been hacked by someone with a far-right vendetta, but the developer's PGP-signed message (opens in new tab) states that they were not hacked.

Since cutting fellow developers off from the project, the hijackers have appeared on Discord (opens in new tab) assuring panicked users that they have no intention of introducing malware into PolyMC, "regardless of what you personally think [about them]." Of course, if they decide to inject malicious code, there will be no one left to stop them. In such a case, it would be better to play it safe and stop using PolyMC altogether.

The hijackers also say they are currently "looking to see if anyone is interested in contributing" to the project. They must be optimists.

But it's not all bad news for PolyMC fans. Since yesterday's drama, the ousted developers have regrouped under the name PrismLauncher (opens in new tab), and while there hasn't been much in the way of official statements from them regarding PolyMC, all they ask is that fans not bother with the project officials. With any luck, PolyMC users will have a smooth transition to the new project without too much trouble; PrismLauncher is not yet fully operational, but the team has a Discord server (opens in new tab) where you can get updates available.