Maybe they're still angry with him about leftpad. Yes, it really is the same guy: https://kodfabrik.com/journal/i-ve-just-liberated-my-modules . And, joking aside it would be wise to bear in mind that we're reading only one side of the story here. As with leftpad, there's another side to this. With leftpad he told Kik, "fuck you" ( https://medium.com/@mproberts/a-discussion-about-the-breakin... ), and then wrought gl…
What was the "other side" of leftpad? As far as I remember, the broken system wrought havoc, not the developer who chose to withdraw his modules. I don't think the developer's reasons are much relevant when discussing how reliable their word is.
OK, so the is more to it than that and he did have a genuine grievance (I forgot exactly what) bit in dealing with that he caused a pile collateral damage for innocent bystanders.
(Innocent bystanders who errantly put too much faith in dependency oriented programming which brings us back to the broken system)