I hope that one takeaway from this entire situation is that if you're a maintainer and your users are pushing you outside your levels of comfort, that's a reflection on them, not on you - and that it could be reflective of something far, far worse than just their impatience.

If you, as a maintainer, value stability of not only your software but also your own mental health, it is entirely something you can be proud of to resist calls for new features, scope increases, and rapid team additions.

Yeah, that was a hard read. I think it highlights the importance of emotionally distancing yourself from your projects.

It's also interesting because it exploits the current zeitgeist when it comes to maintainers' responsibilities to their users and communities. Personally, I think it puts too much expectation on maintainers' shoulders, especially when they're working for free.

Personally, I think maintainers are doing favors for users, and if they don't like how the project is progressing or not, then too bad. That's not a popular sentiment, though.

No good deed goes unpunished, what a shame.

Probably didn't start them, considering that he already mentioned (long-term) mental health issues in the mailing list discussion in which the (likely) sock puppets started making demands.

But it's hard to see the whole thing helping, and it is some combination of depressing and infuriating. I hope he's doing ok.

You only push after you've established your guy as the likely successor. If this was coordinated it was not the first move.