Hmm. Now i understand the reactions better. But isn't it a little akin to going on to ubuntu/ any linux forum and asking(demanding??) for new features. As far as i can see, they haven't been able to convert the diaspora work into profit-making. So from their view point it does make sense to try something new.
Well, they can probably do whatever they want with new projects, but if they decided to slow down Diaspora development, they had to reach out to the community with explicit statement that they are changing focus now. This never happened, on the contrary D* team said that they aren't dropping D* (however they didn't clarify if they slow down D* development). And it's not about demanding new features - the most core advertised features which were intended for Diaspora from the beginning aren't complete yet.
I'm not sure if they wanted to turn it into "for profit" thing. It's a FOSS project, not a for profit venture. Though the project needs to be sustainable of course.
