The most important part of FLOSS is "F", apparently.
I mean I understand the reasoning behind the problem with "x is mainline": distros.
Most software at the utility level rsync sits at, reaches final users (the ones who complain) not by direct download, but by being aggregated by distros. And unfortunately even highly respected distros like Debian have decided to accept AI in rsync even with the resulting data loss.
I was warned beforehand enough that I pinned rsync in 3.4.1 while it still was in my system, and it will remain so for the short term while I wait for this whole thing to settle down amicably.