Comment by DistressedDrone

Already cited in another comment:

> We send the emails to the Linux communityand seek their feedback. The experiment is not to blame any maintainers but to reveal issues in the process. The IRB of University of Minnesota reviewed the procedures of the experiment and determined that this is not human research. We obtained a formal IRB-exempt letter. The experiment will not collect any personal data, individual behaviors, or personal opinions. It is limited to studying the patching process OSS communities follow, instead of individuals.

So they did think of that. Either they misconstrued their research or the IRB messed up. Either way, they can now see for themselves exactly how human a pissed off maintainer is.