The issue title literally says the most notable thing about the project is the license. That reads to me like a clear dismissal of any technical merits; if the most important thing about your project is its license, it's not a very interesting project.
I see your point. I also think the license is the most important thing, and probably even more for someone working on a GNU project at the FSF, but the project is still very interesting in many ways.
The stance is probably not surprising, given the point of FSF. Whether you agree with them or not, the FSF has always been very clear that the most important thing about software is its license. From their point of view, a free program is always superior than a non-free one, regardless of the technical merits.
Maybe this should be read as "I consider the license a no-go, so any technical merits the project has are not relevant (for me)"? If you already dismiss the project because of its license, you probably wouldn't let technical merits redeem that.
since FSF is about software licence ethics they will probably find technical merrits irrelevant if the project uses a licence that is less appealing to their standards than the already existing solution. i dont see why that should raise your eyebrows
I raise my eyebrows at them deciding to voice these concerns on a project's issue tracker. Regardless of how strong their political stance is, it is ultimately none of their business what a given project they are not affiliated with chooses as its license.
It's a rewrite of one of their main project. Of course they can have some comments about it.