I'm not commenting on GvR or GvR's behaviour at all. The discussion took a more general turn, with people seriously suggesting that the developers/maintainers o

I'm not commenting on GvR or GvR's behaviour at all. The discussion took a more general turn, with people seriously suggesting that the developers/maintainers of high-profile, publicly-evangelised open-source projects don't have any ethical duty to support or engage politely with their user base even while still in post. Obviously van Rossum is completely entitled to step down, certainly since there will be others to pick up the reins.