I'm simply not interested in all this interpersonal stuff. People can look and draw their own conclusions. The end. You're right....the facts are that Claude is gone by his own hands. And probably harmed his chances of ever coming back. It doesn't get more black and white than that.
Oh, apart from one educational issue. Check out www.astlinux.com. Astlinux is an open source pbx on a chip- remove your hard drive, run on compactflash. Amazing. Now, click the "donation" button at the left of the page. The objection wasn't to the PayPal link by itself - it was that Claude came up here and posted about it.
And since we're in "sharing" mode - during the late 1980's/early 1990's, one of the top software writers was Al Stevens. He wrote several books on C/C++ and had an outstanding column in Dr Dobbs Journal. He posted large volumes of code in the magazine and had a deal with readers. If you sent him a mailer and a blank diskette and included a dollar bill, he'd send you the code. The money went to the Brevard County Food Bank, an organization that helped the homeless and hungry. It was DDJ's "careware" program. I recall reading that he raised quite a bit of $$$ for the folks.
You're right...people can draw their own conclusions.