It's perhaps telling that you believe the issue here is that the developers didn't say it nicely enough or have some authoritative rule to fall back on. Many developers and systems guys think like this.
The issue many developers have is not with language, it's interacting with other human beings. And the issue here is that the developers don't communicate with their user base. There is no public discussion, poll, or even a heads up. When a user asked about it, he was effectively told, "There will be no communication about this change."
Advising users, no matter how technical they are, to dig through system internals or devote the time and energy to become core contributors of Gnome so they can have the blessed power to ask that something they depend on not be removed for "maintainability" (really, someone's OCD sense of elegance) is actively hostile to those users.
There is no public discussion, poll, or even a heads up. When a user asked about it, he was effectively told, "There will be no communication about this change."
Although there is an IRC channel, a discussion mailing list, and mentioned elsewhere in this comments page, there was a poll of some sort. And half a dozen duplicate bug reports with comments already in bugzilla.
Advising users, no matter how technical they are, to dig through system internals or devote the time and energy to become core contributors of Gnome so they can have the blessed power to ask that something they depend on not be removed for "maintainability" (really, someone's OCD sense of elegance) is actively hostile to those users.
Stuff changes, you can't absolve yourself of the need to deal with it changing just by waving the 'user' or 'busy' cards. If you depend on a feature, don't just go moving entirely to a new version with no way to revert, without testing that the feature is still there. What if it was present, but had a bug and didn't work on your system? Would you go to the developers and demand they consult you before having bugs because you depend on it?
The issue many developers have is not with language, it's interacting with other human beings. And the issue here is that the developers don't communicate with their user base. There is no public discussion, poll, or even a heads up. When a user asked about it, he was effectively told, "There will be no communication about this change."
Advising users, no matter how technical they are, to dig through system internals or devote the time and energy to become core contributors of Gnome so they can have the blessed power to ask that something they depend on not be removed for "maintainability" (really, someone's OCD sense of elegance) is actively hostile to those users.