Being an open-source maintainer is a mostly thankless job. You put in years of work, and in return you will get endless complaints from random users and drive-by contributors who feel entitled to your time.
I mean, just look at the other thread.[1] The HN mob piles on a kernel developer because of a blogpost where a drive-by contributor severely misrepresents (and misquotes) an interaction he had with him more than a year ago.
When people make comments like "if you treat people like crap, they won't stick around," they're only referring to new or even potential contributors. The maintainers are expected to endure anything that is thrown at them. It's their job, they have to be welcoming. The (non-paying) customer is always right!