I really don't understand people.
And I don't just mean "you monetized this in a way I dislike" or "boo, DRM" or "you had dozens of game-breaking bugs at launch" or whatever, which, maybe don't be a dick about it, but at least I get why those things upset people and, especially in the last case, why they might get a bit entitled-seeming about it, since they did part with money—no, it's over the tiniest, most trivial stuff, including, often, things that are the way they are for a very good reason and would piss off 100x as many people if the abusive jerk got his (or her, I guess... but realistically, it's just about always a "his") way. But no, this minor thing is wrong so you're incompetent and any idiot could do better and [some names they somehow came up with, sometimes with disturbing accuracy] who worked on that part should be fired immediately. JFC. They'll spam you with this crap, on every channel they can.
And that's if you're not a woman prominent in the project. Then you get the creeper shit, too.
There's no possible way the DF devs haven't seen their fair share of that.
(though, sure, they were ultimately able to monetize it in a way that very few passion projects of that sort ever can, and certainly not utility open source libraries—that part of the story's way different)
My personal bias is that open source authors and maintainers don't owe anyone anything. They're making their code available to anyone for free, and it's on you if there's something you don't like about it. You can always fork it if you need to. Heck, you don't even have to use it. Write your own thing if something fundamentally bothers you about it.
And yet there's a large group of people who think they're somehow doing you a favor by using your open-source code, as opposed to the other way around. I've tried to talk to some of them, to try to get some idea of it. It typically boils down to either
1. I used and advocated for the project, making it more popular, and therefore they owe me.
2. Using an open-source library is an investment. I'm making a compromise by not writing it myself exactly how I want it. I'm attempting to do things their way, which in some ways is mentally harder than writing it to begin with, so when it changes radically or goes away, or they ask me for support, they have done me dirty. I deserve better.
3. #2, except they recognize that the author/maintainer doesn't owe them anything and hasn't acted maliciously, but they're still bummed that they either have to change things or fork the project and maintain it themselves. It's emotional rather than logical.
Of the three, I can kinda understand the last one, but I'll never agree with it.
Sounds like the OSS equivalent of being paid in exposure
Myself i hate working in JavaScript ecosystem and every few months, when i need to update one of my packages, something is broken. I appreciate every person that worked on libs that i use but i hate everyone of those packages.
One dog asks another why do you sleep inside on the rug in the warm, while I live outside in the doghouse on a chain?
The inside dog answers, because I entertain and you serve.
Also, I never saw it as a house of cards, since the blocks have varying sizes they just look like abstract blocks to me. Interesting.
At the very least, it would destabilize them.
Kind of like a house of cards