Lately, there’s something about the Iranian open-source community that I genuinely struggle to understand: the amount of tribalism and factionalism.

It often feels like whenever a project such as Omarchy or CachyOS gets hyped, some of its Iranian fans immediately turn it into a campaign against other projects. They start brigading, insulting our work, and even insulting the people who use our software.

But why?

Is there some kind of competition I’m not aware of? Is open source supposed to be a battlefield where one project has to “win” and everyone else has to be mocked?

Why do you feel the need to come after me, my work, or my users just because you prefer another project?

Open source is supposed to be about collaboration, building things, learning from each other, and giving people freedom. Not about forming tribes around whatever project is currently being hyped and attacking everyone outside the tribe.

Maybe to some people, these are just comments or posts on the internet. But when you’re the person spending hours, days, months, and years building and maintaining a project, this kind of behavior is genuinely exhausting.

Honestly, this has contributed to a very high level of mental burnout for me, to the point where I’ve reached a stage where I can barely get myself to work.

I don’t understand why a community that is supposed to encourage people to build things has to become a place where you constantly feel like you need to defend yourself and your project.

Disagreement is normal. Criticism is normal. Even competition can be healthy.

But harassment, insults, tribalism, and brigading against other people and their projects accomplish absolutely nothing.

So, seriously: why?

What exactly are we competing for?