Notepad++ and Don Ho: A story of software, activism, and defiance

For nearly 20 years, Notepad++ has been a staple in my workflow—one of the first programs I install on every new computer, yet I never gave much thought to its origins. I admittedly never paid much attention to the release notes, and when I did, I never really noticed anything unusual. Recently, I found myself wondering about its backstory. As a widely used open-source tool with no commercial ambitions, there had to be a deeper story behind it—and there was.