I pretty much agree with you especially on the point that there are far more effective and nuanced ways to for the maintainer to have made their point, like relicensing (imagine what would happen if the license suddenly became AGPL and everyone at big corps automatically updated without checking the new license—it would be a raucous for both legal and engineering, author could offer a non-gpl version for money and probably rake in more than a 6 figure salary… but I digress).

What I find most interesting though are the ethics. The way I interpret (1.) on this comment in the context of this thread (other people have said similar things) is that the community considers the author here to be acting ethically, just annoyingly. When someone submits dubious patches to the linux kernel and wastes everyones time, it’s unethical (kernel maintainers are the victim). When researchers submit dubious CCPA requests to people on and waste peoples time, it’s unethical (webmasters are the victim). However, when a package maintainer throws a temper tantrum and fucks up everyones’ stuff and wastes a bunch of time, they’re in their right to do so and it’s pretty much just annoying but totally okay because the maintainer is the victim of something (either corporate greed or mental health issues, or both). Our society very much puts a premium on protecting victims.