It doesn't have to be "implicit criticism", but an open mind doesn't blindly accept stuff, ask for justification.

Yes. Fossil is not only the VCS for SQLite, Fossil is also built around SQLite. SQLite is a core component of Fossil. Thus, when I am working on Fossil, I am forced to interact with SQLite as a "user" instead of as a "developer". In geek-speak, it forces me to "eat my own dog food". This, in turn, prompts me to add needed features to SQLite and more generally to make the SQLite interfaces friendlier to application-developers.

One recent example: SQLite version 3.34.0 added the ability to include two or more recursive terms in a Recursive Common Table Expression. (See item 2 in https://www.sqlite.org/releaselog/3_34_0.html and subsequent links.) This feature was added specifically so that I could more easily write SQL statements that would walk the Fossil version history DAG, as described by the https://www.sqlite.org/lang_with.html#rcex3 link.

I did not develop Fossil with this "dogfooding" idea in mind. It was an unanticipated benefit of Fossil. But in the end, I think it might have been the most important benefit of using Fossil instead of some other VCS.

Not included in the interview is a discussion we had about types. I really think SQLite should be stricter in enforcement of types and Richard doesn't buy it. I may include it in a future bonus episode but the reason I cut it was it didn't really include any details about story of SQLite, it was just two people disagreeing about types. I've done a lot of episodes about types in the past and I wanted this to be about build SQLite, and not about types.