i will never understand why people will flock to this but opensnitch which is just better, fully open and has existed for longer (on linux) gets ignored.

Little Snitch is not there to replace OpenSnitch. It's just an additional option you can choose from. Some people might prefer it, others not.

there is little reason to use two application firewalls at once so at least functionally it can replace it. ofc it will still keep existing regardless and i do appreciate the steps towards going open source.

then it pretty obviously is not better?