I do wish to insinuate there is something like "guiltiness" on the part of Chaincode folks.

Pure incompentency yes. Guiltness no.

One has to zoom out that we're in a community of developers spread all over the world, where there is no really strong cultural norms, and there has been a lot of traumas from all sides due to the block size war.

I'll not enter into the details of this post, I'll just add the more info from the viewpoint of an insider, and who knows quite well the ins and outs.

Somehow, from my perspective this is a failure of the development culture as it has been nurtured over the last ~8 years, when the majority of bitcoin core developers have started to be on "no-string-attached" style of funding grants.

This is something I can talk about, because I've not only been a beneficiary of that style of funding in the past (and I quite deliberately of my own), I’ve seen the massive influx of grants becoming the industry norm circa 2020, and I’ve been few times called to give my opinion in matters of grant attribution (funny enough on someone who is at Chaincode now).

But the problem there is quite flagrant, once you've seen how few grant attributions are effectively made, sure most of the time there is technical code works but the "social" factor plays a lot. If you're friendly with the grant committee or sharing their ideological bias, or their view on "inclusivity" most of the time at equal technical work, you will be the one doing the grant. And everyone in a grant committee will try to draw the cover towards their own interest, e.g favor open-source work needed for their commercial endeavors on another title. And they might not be transparent on their conflict of interests towards their committee co-chairs.

I'm not saying that if you're the girlfriend or boyfriend of someone influent in a grant committee (we have straights, gays and bi among the devs saying this with some distant), you'll be sure to have a "grant" in priority over other folks, who might have a stronger track records than yours...but you see...

Developers are human beings, and I have my own bias like any one else. It's a constant work to be careful about situations where you could be in conflict of interest, or act ethically very early on some topics, even if it's become an issue even years and years after. Do no trust, verify.

The present situation has been worsened by the csw cases, which is a sad fact for sure and something we all agree on, where few bitcoin FOSS veterans have seen their legal fees covered mainly by 2 organizations in this industry. If it has not generated a direct economical subordination, it certainly has generated a sentiment of "debt" among some bitcoin FOSS veterans, and as such those people might be more incline to give leeway to Chaincode for things like the moderation guidelines.

I fully understand their positions their and I've myself shared valuable info to harden any defensive litigation info when the BDFL was announced in Q1 2022 in a "this is a problem for all of us" mindset. Though, yes when you’re an open-source devs and you become used to turn yourself towards Big Boys to solve all your problems, including legal fees for your actions, that's it’s only generating dependency and subordination.

Again, I fully understand them, serious legal trouble can be a real burden, and here I'm not talking about the bullshit Alex's attorney's letter, I’ve seen worst in my experience.

However, that's latent subordination one can only wonder if it's not playing when during a IRC meeting there is only ~13 folks ACKing the moderation guidelines.

Burnout in the open-source world is of course a serious topic and somehow why I’ve not been formally opposed to civility or courtesy rules on the bitcoin core github repository. In my opinion, when you have to tread with the utmost civility anyone who is a maintainer it’s a hard job. But it doesn’t mean you cannot talk truth to them, and they have any legitimacy in leveraging github permissions to silence your view.

It’s only making things more inflated.

Let's be frank, no one give will grant you independence in your role as dev or as a maintainer, certainly not for anything related to consensus change or your "developer self-sovereignity" in this space. This is something you have to push for, with your grit, your talent and your work ethics. Independence has to be built and fight for, it's never just "granted".