Do I really think he's a jerk? No, I think he's unwell. Previous headlines, lots of conspiracy theory posting recently, now this. He needs help.
Do I think this is an attack? We call other exploits attacks. The shoe fits. This was a deliberately hostile act.
Why are they drinking from someone else's well? Someone with "a sizeable past history of jerkdom"?
If you can check the water - nay, if you can copy the water and check it, and create an identical well from that water so that said jerk may never interfere with it again - then the "victims" have no one to blame but themselves.
If he had poisoned other people's wells you might have a point. He didn't, in the same way that poisoning the water I keep in my fridge is not an attack on anyone else. Why do you trust the water in my fridge without checking it?
Because the well said "free water". And in some cases it's not even them taking water from that well, but other people who they asked to bring them tea (third party libraries).
> Someone with "a sizeable past history of jerkdom"?
Do you really dig through the internet history of every maintainer of every package you ever used?
No, because that would be impossible but I do try to check the libraries I use to the best of my ability, the same with browser extensions I install. I even read the ingredients on things I buy. Sometimes I read the instructions on drugs I'm prescribed.
The perfect is the enemy of the good, after all.