> It feels good to not need to worry about dpkg and tar. I only plan to maintain this fork minimally, eg security fixes.

This is exactly the problem in the first place, lack of support for maintainers.

OP themselves say "I will only minimally maintain this fork". Okay, but it's so easy in hindsight to criticize what has happened.

> Hopefully Lasse Collin will consider these possibilities and address them in his response to the attack.

I can't even imagine how he's feeling these days.