Dude clearly designed it to be included in his releases in a difficult to detect fashion. That’s “malicious developer” behavior.
In the context of OSS, you design to do , and you set things up to allow users and implementers to customize it as they see fit and necessary. Intentionally hiding opt-out mechanism - let alone shipping with shit you want or need to opt out of is very much a big tech bullshit tactic, and OSS devs who do that are objectively caustic OSS devs. Dude tried to foist his views and sensibilities onto everyone who used his shit in a very, very sneaky fashion
It’s correct and appropriate that he got blackballed from the community.