zith's opinion is perfectly clear and valid, and your attempt to nickpick it to death is unbecoming.
Unbecoming? First of all "Zith" was the one that instagated any point or point "nitpicking" and he did it in a thread where his "opinions" were not solicited or even particularly relevant. Moreover he presents many of what you call his "opinions" as if they were facts which, in fact, they are not.
I don't accept your definition of unbecomimg; the topic of the thread isn't even directed at "Zith", nor is it aimed at any project he's involved in or ever likely to be involved in.
open source exists to encourage derivative works...
Incorrect: Open Source exists for many reasons; encouraging derivative work may or may not be one of them depending on the Open Source license a particular work is developed under. There are in fact Open Source licenses that don't allow deravitive work, or explicitly manage it.
...zitheral does not want derivatives of his work.
That's just ducky and fine I'm sure, but the thread is not about "Zith", his work, or what he wants -- (apparently you missed that point); it's a about Shadowspawn and one of his works, that is in fact a derivative work, that is about to be abandoned and lost forever...
accepting programming as a creative endeavour, his rational is easy to understand, and honestly made perfectly clear in his post.
No one said otherwise; did you actually haver a point?
creating a mod makes real your own personal vision, much like painting a picture or writing a song. maybe you want mona lisa with a butterfly in her hair, but da vinci didn't, and honestly I don't see a problem with allowing people to retain control of their work to ensure it stays true to their original intentions.
No one said otherwise; though your comparisons of Programmers that are in fact making mods as deravitive works on games to DaVinci is assinine...
if you want to see mona lisa with butterfly, or mona lisa with flower, or mona lisa with bottle of wine, paint your own
I think a better solution to the obvious problem you're having is that you don't troll threads before reading them, and without germane remarks...