This is the absolute CORE of the problem with open-source software. Someone becomes the "maintainer" of a project, often through no skill of their own (they just showed up at the right time), which effectively makes them BDFL with infinite veto power. Hard-forks of popular projects are politically unpopular (for good reason), so that isn't an option. Instead, the whole world of software that relies on a package is broken or fixed at the whim of one dude.
> This is the absolute CORE of the problem with open-source software. Someone becomes the "maintainer" of a project, often through no skill of their own
That’s a bit unnuanced, isn’t it?
Nobody randomly becomes the maintainer of a big/popular project without having a history of contributing. They were the ones willing to pick up the task of doing free labour for everyone after the last guy didn’t want the job anymore.
As maintainer of a project, their job is to try to respond to bugs, maintain it, improve it and keep it working. All for free.
If somebody submits a low quality or low effort patch which goes against the projects conventions or general strategies or patterns which will over time increase the maintainer’s burden, he is under no obligation to accept that patch.
On the contrary, whoever submits the patch is the one who wants to benefit from all that time invested into the project so far, for his own good. I think it’s absolutely fair to expect/demand that they are also willing to put up some effort when they send in patches and receive feedback.
This is the absolute CORE of the problem with open-source software. Someone becomes the "maintainer" of a project, often through no skill of their own (they just showed up at the right time), which effectively makes them BDFL with infinite veto power. Hard-forks of popular projects are politically unpopular (for good reason), so that isn't an option. Instead, the whole world of software that relies on a package is broken or fixed at the whim of one dude.