Everything in the Goenka system of Vipassana is "open source". You can listen to the discourses and decide for yourself whether it feels too much like a sect.
And this is precisely what makes it friendly to the Hacker mind-set.
"Art of Living" can be off-putting thanks to its use elsewhere. It took me a long time to realize that "Art of Living" as Goenka uses it has nothing to do with (Sri Sri) Ravi Shankar's church or the business he's built on top of it. Ravi Shankar was actually a student of Goenka's who went on to sell meditation later in life with The Art of Living Foundation. There's no connection between the two organizations.
(Vedic) Hinduism historically was not: scriptures were only transmitted orally; the priests made sure to recite quickly/mutter so onlookers (onhearers?) could not get hold of the texts.
All of the Vedic texts have long been published at this point so this is no longer the case.
And this is precisely what makes it friendly to the Hacker mind-set.