While FOSS developers share political beliefs relating to the benefits of sharing software, FOSS traditionally had a culture of putting unrelated politics to the side. Strategically, FOSS couldn't afford to be seen as partisan given that it already encountered resistance from people who viewed it as a suspicious, vaguely communist, movement.
Now that FOSS is established, and there are developers that have grown up with FOSS existing unchallenged in society, political agnosticism isn't seen as important.
In contemporary Western culture, ideology seems to be taking the place of religion in terms of regulating morality. Social media has been instrumental in this transition. We're now seeing the emergence of global, ideological tribes that can communicate in realtime. Those who have power within these tribes are largely untouchable within the sphere of social media: they have the power to direct followers to lobby against others for perceived abuses, yet the power they wield intimidates many who would criticize them for abuse of power.
I argued politics with a lot of FOSS developers on Usenet in the early 90s. They weren't apolitical. And the internal politics in FOSS were often very highly charged and often bitter. The splits that created OpenBSD and DragonflyBSD, Stallman's politics with FSF and GNU bleeding over into endless licensing flamewars on the LKML mailing list, etc.
You are either highly naive about FOSS or you've just defined all the vicious politics in FOSS as being just and righteous -- and that is exactly the justifications that the lynchmobs and their leaders in this article hold towards their victims as well.
While Foss should be to some degree apolitical, individual contributors should be allowed to express their political views. The politics and the software itself should be treated differently.
Now that FOSS is established, and there are developers that have grown up with FOSS existing unchallenged in society, political agnosticism isn't seen as important.
In contemporary Western culture, ideology seems to be taking the place of religion in terms of regulating morality. Social media has been instrumental in this transition. We're now seeing the emergence of global, ideological tribes that can communicate in realtime. Those who have power within these tribes are largely untouchable within the sphere of social media: they have the power to direct followers to lobby against others for perceived abuses, yet the power they wield intimidates many who would criticize them for abuse of power.