The sad story of the em28xx driver

Well, politics and clashes of personalities happen in every organization, even in a loosely organized community like an open source development group.
It is up to the leaders/steering group/maintainers to handle these kinds of situations. Obviously, this hasn't worked out very well in this instance.
Maybe Jon's article can be the crystallization point for everybody to take a step back and go on a path of compromise instead of confrontation (hope springs eternal, I know...)