From what I've seen, Rich does things to end controversies quickly rather than talk them to death. There was a religious war developing in the user group some time ago over licensing terms of products that were developed in Clojure. Rich didn't take a side, as I recall--he simply intervened after a few days and asked people not to carry on this discussion but to focus on technical issues. At least one heavyweight (Jon Harrop) seemed to disappear from the user group upon being asked to cut out the licensing jibber-jabber, but peace was restored.

Given Clojure/core potential earnings and the bigger bang for the buck of corporate sponsorships, requests for individual donations are not worth the ill-will that they apparently cause. I like his techniques for time management and choosing his battles carefully.

Onward with Clojure development!