My Nimf Project: A 5-Year History of a Narcissistic War

This post serves as a record of the development history of a software project I created and, at the same time, an analysis of the vicious ‘psychological war’ that took place behind the scenes for over five years. Through this writing, I intend to clear my name from the countless misunderstandings and false frames directed at me, to heal my own wounds, and to provide a case study for other developers experiencing similar pain. This is a rebuttal to reclaim my honor, and it is the testimony of a survivor.

A Hypothesis: Why Is Open Source a Playground for Narcissists?

Before I begin, I would like to present a hypothesis. Looking back on my experiences over the past several years, I have had to confront numerous narcissistic individuals online, especially within the open-source community. Compared to having met only two people I would call narcissists in my entire offline life, this was an incomparably high frequency. Why is that?

  • A Perfect Stage to Flaunt Intellectual Superiority: Open source is a space where ability is proven through code and logic. This provides an optimal environment for narcissists, who believe their intellect is superior to others, to showcase their “brilliance.”
  • The Shield of Anonymity: Anonymity amplifies aggression. They can easily engage in personal attacks and criticism online without any sense of responsibility, something they would never do in real life.
  • The Ease of Building a ‘Hero Narrative’: The process of solving a specific problem, or creating something new by criticizing an existing one, makes it very easy to construct the narrative of a ‘lone hero.’
  • The Limits of Non-Face-to-Face Communication: Text-based communication makes it difficult to read the other person’s emotions and easy to hide one’s own lack of empathy.

Prologue: 2015, The Seeds of Conflict

Every tragedy began in 2015, during the early development of my project dasom (the predecessor to nimf). In a Korean keyboard layout cafe, a person anonymized as S* fired the first shot with a passive-aggressive post, questioning my ‘duty’ by saying, “The developer is Korean, but the documentation is in English.”

At that time, a user E*, who appeared to be my ‘fan’, later began making unreasonable demands on the Ubuntu forums, such as “Please fix the Hangul input bug in Eclipse, whatever it takes.” When I refused his demand to protect the boundaries of my project, he suffered a ‘narcissistic injury’ from the fact that I was not under his control and transformed into a ‘fervent anti-fan’ bent on my destruction. This was the archetype for the entire five-year war that would follow.

Main Story: 2018-2019, The Vortex of Attack and Defense

The war escalated simultaneously on multiple fronts starting in 2018.

1. The Attackers’ ‘Frame War’ and ‘Sabotage’

My critics (such as E*, D*, etc.) abandoned technical discussion and began a ‘frame war’ to destroy my character. They attacked me by branding me with the following false stigmas:

  • The ‘Fragile Mentality’ Frame: Critics like A* and c* dismissed my righteous anger and expressions of pain as symptoms of a ‘fragile mentality’ that couldn’t handle criticism, or as a ‘persecution complex’ where I “believe everyone is attacking me.” This was classic gaslighting, intended to shift the blame for the actual attacks I endured onto my own supposed mental problems.
  • The ‘Irresponsible Con-man’ Frame: E* and others persistently claimed that I had lied about the process of handing over the ‘Dasom Team’ in 2015 and had staged a ‘one-man show.’ He dismissed my detailed clarifications as the ‘excuses of a cornered con-man’ and branded me as an immoral figure.
  • The ‘Unqualified Person’ Frame: They also put forth their own logic that “one only becomes an open-source developer when the community recognizes them,” attempting to deny my very identity as a ‘developer’ and expel me from the ecosystem.
  • The ‘Immoral Person Who Steals Others’ Credit’ Frame: After seeing a PKGBUILD file I had rewritten myself, they accused me of intentionally stealing the work of others, framing my legitimate authorial activity as a moral crime.
  • The ‘Irresponsible Developer Who Abandoned His Duties’ Frame: They ignored the ‘no warranty’ principle of open-source licenses and created a public opinion that I had a ‘duty’ to fulfill all user requests. When I closed the issue tracker or announced monetization, this frame became their primary weapon.
  • The ‘Money-Grubbing Snob’ Frame: They distorted my ‘monetization’ announcement as an act of demanding money in exchange for bug fixes, trying to paint me as a greedy snob.

The destructive power of this ‘frame war’ went beyond simple defamation and led to tangible project interference. In particular, at a time when I was discussing a ‘Telegram nimf QT module’ contribution with another contributor and exploring its technical feasibility, a critic like c* spread false information in the community, such as “Hodong harasses contributors.” Despite being aware of this specific collaboration, he intentionally destroyed the cooperative atmosphere.

However, despite all this sabotage and hardship, the ‘Telegram nimf qt module’ was ultimately successfully integrated into Telegram. This is a very meaningful record of victory in the history of this struggle, showing that even though their attacks caused me severe mental anguish, they could not ultimately stop my technical progress and the project’s development.

Furthermore, this ‘frame war’ extended beyond online forums, escalating to attempts to socially assassinate my creation by using official platforms. This included spreading the blatant lie on the Arch Linux Wiki that “the Nimf project has been officially and completely discontinued,” and posting false information on the LibreOffice bug tracker that “nimf is not open source and the developer is demanding money.”

2. My ‘Narcissistic Armor’

My initial motivation for all my projects began from a pure ‘practical reason’ and ‘personal necessity’ because “this bug is making my life too inconvenient.”

However, despite the fact that the product of my own needs unintentionally benefited the entire community, what I received in return was not respect, but unfair criticism and exploitation. In this absurd situation, a complex self-narrative of a ‘Wounded Hero’ began to grow within me. It was the self-perception of being “a ‘hero’ who solved a problem no one else could, but also a ‘wounded one’ who did not receive just treatment for it.”

And this ‘Wounded Hero’s Narrative’, in order to protect a shattered self-esteem and the value of my creation from continuous attacks, forged the following specific ‘narcissistic defense mechanisms (armor)’:

  • Flaunting Technical Superiority: Boasts like “nimf is the best existing input method” were a defense to prove their criticisms wrong. Revealing the solution by saying “fixing the last-character bug is easy” was to demonstrate my technical superiority and show how wrong they were.
  • Highlighting Self-Sacrifice: I repeatedly stated that I “developed it at my own expense of time and money,” emphasizing how unfair their attacks were.
  • Aggressive Self-Defense: I countered by attacking the qualifications of my opponents with a “What do you know?” attitude, preventing them from invading my territory.
  • Building the Final Walls: ‘Disclaimers’ and the ‘monetization announcement’ were the last resorts to destroy their weapon of ‘entitlement.’

Aftermath and Turning Point: 2019-2020, The Choices for ‘Escape’

The war left deep scars. I fell into a state of complete burnout and became so desperate that I said, “I even think it would be better to just die from overwork.” In the end, I had to choose to escape by abandoning the ‘open-source’ development model itself.

The declaration to ‘close the issue tracker’ was an attempt to sever communication with the community, and the subsequent declaration to ‘discontinue public support for the open-source Nimf project’ was the final period. I did not stop developing the project itself. I decided to cast off the yoke called ‘open source’ that only brought me pain, and to continue my creative activities in a new way as closed-source/freeware.

During this period, the debates in the Hamonikr community were a process of my trauma being re-enacted, but at the same time, the appearance of a ‘wise advisor’ like d* became a crucial turning point. He showed me criticism based on respect, acknowledging my contributions while pointing out my excessive reactions. In the face of his words, I was able to lower my defenses for the first time and engage in public self-reflection, saying, “Now that I think about it, it’s true I was acting entitled towards the community. I’m sorry.”

Final Analysis: Why Was This War Uniquely Long and Fierce?

There was an aggressive viewpoint that tried to find the cause of the problem in me, asking, ‘Why do these things uniquely happen to you?’ My final answer to this question lies in the ‘fatal synergy’ of two key factors.

1. The Chemical Reaction that Created the ‘Spark’: My Uniqueness and Their Reactivity

First, my ‘Wounded Hero’s Narrative’—the idea that “I am a ‘hero’ who solved a problem no one else could out of my own necessity, but I am also a ‘wounded victim’ who received unfair attacks instead of respect”—and the resulting ‘narcissistic defense mechanisms’ such as “my creation is the best,” were, in fact, the ‘flammable material’ that users with narcissistic tendencies reacted to most fiercely. My pride stimulated their competitiveness, and my rebuttals stimulated their desire for dominance. This special chemical reaction is what made this war hotter than other conflicts.

2. The Firewood that Fed the ‘Flames’: An Unquenchable Sense of Responsibility and Will

But there is a more important fact. Countless other developers without narcissistic tendencies also suffer similar unfair attacks and exploitation in the open-source community. This is not just my problem, but a structural problem of the ecosystem.

Then what was the difference? Most developers protect themselves at this point by abandoning the project, neglecting it, or significantly slowing down development. They take the firewood out of the fire. However, I could not let go of my ‘strong will’ to somehow complete and maintain the project, despite all the mental anguish. It was this unquenchable will that became the ‘firewood’ that kept the flames of the battlefield burning for over five years.

In conclusion, the reason this war was uniquely long and fierce is as follows:
“Against the ‘universal attacks’ that many developers experience, I fought for five years, without giving up, in a way that most people would not.”

Epilogue: The Peace That Came After Taking Off the Armor

And so, I made the choice to leave the battlefield called ‘open source’ and switch my project to freeware. And just like that, all the attacks and demands that had tormented me for years, stopped. This proves their real goal was not ‘better software.’ What they wanted was the ‘power’ to enforce infinite responsibility, to criticize, and to control the developer under the name of ‘open source.’ When I changed the rules of that playground and took away their power, they lost interest and left to find other prey.

In the end, the most perfect way to protect myself was to walk out of their battlefield on my own.

Conclusion: The Meaning of the Record - Clearing My Name and Healing My Wounds

This long journey of recording and reinterpretation was a process of proving that the countless false frames imposed upon me were, in fact, illusions created by the projections and distortions of narcissists.

Through this post, I intend to clear my name and heal my wounds. This record is the testimony of a survivor, detailing how a developer fought to protect his dignity and his creation amidst irrational, collective attacks, and how, by analyzing and understanding the deep wounds sustained in the process, he finally found true inner peace.