but you have to back up around 2y to understand why he's doing this. my conspiratorial mind says this is when gmax first hatched the idea of Blockstream and started working on gathering up most of the other core devs into the scheme. since that time, nothing substantial has gotten done around the core protocol as solex pointed out above.
That would explain why they were so
furious when btcd launched as a credible competitor to Bitcoin Core and forced them to actually start developing again in order to keep up.
Just try mentioning something positive about btcd and/or its developers on /r/bitcoin and pay attention to the amount of bile and venom that will suddenly be unleashed on you by random low post-count accounts you've never interacted with before.