At least one guy who saw an issue created an alternative. Calling him a dictator is a bit much.
Discussion
If Core only focused on bug fixes / security updates, you wouldn't need to have alternative node implementations.
OK, so in the current world we need alternative implementations. And Luke volunteered to create one
He created an alternative because he wanted to push NEW changes, and the other core devs were not OK.
That's the issue. Everyone wants to change Bitcoin. We need to ossify before this gets out of control.
