The developer could have accepted that allegedly inferior fix, give the credit, and patch it with their own version in a single commit. I'd have done that, for example, all the while trying to communicate with the submitter of the patch about my intentions.
Maybe he wanted the badge for his own honor, not to put it anywhere else. Some people are into that kind of thing, and he fixed a legitimate problem of his to earn this. I can understand them and respect them for that.
> No one asked you to do this.
Their work needed this. The company needed this to work better, and they deserve the credit for doing the work. This is not open for discussion in my opinion.
> You seem to have no interest in fixing other problems (which you were given an opportunity to do)
As I aforementioned, you need time to do this. It's not given that the author has free time to work on any problems they deem worthy. I'd love to fix tons of bugs, mine or not, but I can't do that because lack of time. Heck, I can't find an hour to finish implementing my own projects. How do we know that he has the whole day to do the research and fix other bugs?