You didn't use the words, but if saying that community discomfort eclipses all the different types of the work involved (with your point being that they might have been better just doing the work) isn't a trivialisation of said work, then I don't know what is.
EDIT: Actually, I take that back, sorry. If we both have different estimations of what the community discomfort actually is (both the discomfort currently and the discomfort that will be caused technically), then I can't make that call and say you were trivialising it.
My point is that a lot of the more vocal elements were definitely trivialising the work involved, going as far as suggesting that the maintainer is an asshole for not just doing a find/replace.
It's hard to take that in good faith, as if it were just a find/replace, why don't they offer to take care of it along with any ongoing technical consequences?
The answer is that they're both ignorant of the technical implications, and ultimately, more comfortable shouting from the sidelines than rolling up their sleeves, preferring instead to make innate character judgements about the maintainer.
Yes, and I think this is indicative of a broader problem with humanity itself.
It's very easy to assume that things that impact oneself negatively were done out of malice. Most of the time, these are innocent or naive, not malicious. However, as humans, we tend to jump to the worst possible case and _act on that assumption_. That's the real problem here.
EDIT: Actually, I take that back, sorry. If we both have different estimations of what the community discomfort actually is (both the discomfort currently and the discomfort that will be caused technically), then I can't make that call and say you were trivialising it.
My point is that a lot of the more vocal elements were definitely trivialising the work involved, going as far as suggesting that the maintainer is an asshole for not just doing a find/replace.
It's hard to take that in good faith, as if it were just a find/replace, why don't they offer to take care of it along with any ongoing technical consequences?
The answer is that they're both ignorant of the technical implications, and ultimately, more comfortable shouting from the sidelines than rolling up their sleeves, preferring instead to make innate character judgements about the maintainer.