Eh, it doesn't seem like character assassination. Dude chose his management style. That makes his project unfit for purpose for certain people. Those people are allowed to make that determination and state as such.
I remember when the Elm team first decided to lock down the Elm compiler, so that only the team in charge had special privileged access to modify it. I thought, "wow, this looks like a bunch of people who don't want to collaborate, who want to take their ball and tell others how to play with it, really putting the 'dictator' in BDFL." and you know what? that's fine. I don't harbor anything against them as people. But that left a permanently bad taste in my mouth and I'm unlikely to ever trust that group or a project they're managing.
I remember when the Elm team first decided to lock down the Elm compiler, so that only the team in charge had special privileged access to modify it. I thought, "wow, this looks like a bunch of people who don't want to collaborate, who want to take their ball and tell others how to play with it, really putting the 'dictator' in BDFL." and you know what? that's fine. I don't harbor anything against them as people. But that left a permanently bad taste in my mouth and I'm unlikely to ever trust that group or a project they're managing.