The rsync developer has gifted us with positive value for many years. Now he is gifting us with negative value by making his project worse. So in a real sense he gave us what we were owed: he owed us nothing, and he gave us nothing. Net nothing.

In a real sense though, linking this article (from 2018) to the rsync situation misses the point, because backlash like this in the open source world is never about what people believe they are owed. Software users are and have always been entitled, yes, regardless of whether the software in question is open or proprietary. The difference with open source software though is that when a project diverges from what most people want, it can be forked.

The outrage against open source projects going in the wrong direction then, is not outrage that the developer is not giving them what they are owed. Rather it is the anger stage of the grief cycle related to the realisation that there is now lots of work to be done to fork or replace the project.

Why give a gift and then take it back? Is it reasonable to decry the anger and resentment that such an act engenders?

Remember the left-pad incident? Was the developer within their rights to withdraw their work? Yes. Was it a dick move? Yes. Was the anger against them justified? Yes. The rsync situation is analogous. We scream into the void and then we move on.