> Although this post might seem like a critique of Parquet, that is not my intention. I am simply documenting what I have learned and explaining the challenges maintainers of an open format face when evolving it. All the benefits and utilities that a format like Parquet has far outweigh these inconveniences.

Yes, it is a critique (or at least its user community). It's a critique that's 100% justified too.

Have we all been so conditioned by corporate training that we've lost the ability to say "hey, this sucks" when it _does_ in fact suck?

We all lose when people communicate unclearly. Here, the people holding back evolution of the format do need to be critiqued, and named, and shamed, and the author shouldn't have been so shy about doing it.