I have been involved in open source and non-commercial, volunteer driven projects for at least a decade. It's true that it's not right to demand volunteers who spend their time on the projects to answer questions. However, in this case, having read the mailing list thread and even the parent post to which you replied, I don't believe anyone is _demanding_ anything from the project owner.
People who are passionate about a project, as a user or contributor, do tend to ask what the status/roadmap of a project is. At least in open source projects I contribute to, that's not considered as demanding something from the project leaders, just because no one has paid for the project.
IMO, there are times where it's valid to state that no one has paid for the project so aren't entitled to anything, but I don't think this case is a valid one. I've seen this statement being used many times with open source projects and such project usually tend to lose sight that users are a central part of open source projects.
I agree with all you say. And I also understand being angry about a project for not considering me as a user enough.
However, "There is absolutely no reason to not be answering emails" gave me the impression that at least one person is demanding replies to emails. I still feel it's okay to tell the quoted person that if he doesn't pay someone he can't demand from that person to answer emails.
Last but not least, if someone hasn't answered emails for some time, who seemingly had enough trust before to be important in a software project, then it may be wise, even for people with legit demands, to see whether or not that person had good reasons for his absense or not.
People who are passionate about a project, as a user or contributor, do tend to ask what the status/roadmap of a project is. At least in open source projects I contribute to, that's not considered as demanding something from the project leaders, just because no one has paid for the project.
IMO, there are times where it's valid to state that no one has paid for the project so aren't entitled to anything, but I don't think this case is a valid one. I've seen this statement being used many times with open source projects and such project usually tend to lose sight that users are a central part of open source projects.