> "Do you have a target date for the next release?"
Simply asking for such a thing isn't objectionable, he's not demanding it.
> "I'm trying to formulate our case for waiting, but need some kind of target date."
The way this is phrased, the "need" is something others are requiring of him, not something he is requiring from the mitmproxy developer. In this comment, he's making a request and explaining his commercial and personal motivation for his request. There wasn't any problem here until the guy came back with an email throwing around words like extortion.
"Can you loan me some money, I need to pay rent."
vs
"I need you to loan me money, because I need to pay rent."
You’ve made the distinction pretty clear, but often times it isn’t so easy to see or it can get muddled.
The original comment was already at the very least, absolutely tone deaf.
Edit to replies: Both the context and the employer were in the original post. Blasting the actual GitHub issue when it's clear the author specifically tried to avoid that is awful behavior too.
IMHO, asking for the next release date is ok. He even added sorta justification as to "why" he asked it.
Proposing consultancy services is also ok, just like answering "we don't have a release date" would also be ok.
But the email... Can't choose between this guy thinks he is "The Guy Working At IBM", or he sucks at communicating.
From all the RedHat news lately it seems to be the other way around. Not unexpected as that's usually how acquisitions go.
It's definitely relevant.
It's pretty shocking that someone in the industry so long thinks that OSS maintainers owe him anything though, or that he didn't think to simply fork his own version - he must know this is an option. He's probably read the MIT license at some point in his career - has he never stopped to think about what to provide something 'as-is' means? His position suggests that he has the resources available to do a lot of things that were far less embarrassing than asking someone who owes him nothing to make his job easier.