HN is not the kernel mailing list, and the range of topics discussed on here are significantly wider than that of the mailing list. If we restricted ourselves to the same rules, there's not many posts on the front page that would be allowed.
Sometimes we have no choice as to whether or not we can use the work of someone who has done bad things - Einstein was quite awful to his wife, for example, but it's not practical to ditch relativity just because he sucked on a personal level. But there's plenty of replacement filesystems - should there be no discussion as to whether or not we should weigh the moral issues alongside the technical ones?
Sometimes we have no choice as to whether or not we can use the work of someone who has done bad things - Einstein was quite awful to his wife, for example, but it's not practical to ditch relativity just because he sucked on a personal level. But there's plenty of replacement filesystems - should there be no discussion as to whether or not we should weigh the moral issues alongside the technical ones?