> That we gain some personal joy in maintaining our open source projects does not in any way mean that we need care about inconsiderate jerks throwing rocks at the man years of work we give them for free.

Oh I agree. Nobody has to care about this. Trash the email on sight.

This is more about the message being sent to other users. To me this feels very much like one's opinions carry as much weight as they pay for it and if the author doesn't like your feedback you might end up on that next release page.