I think of it this way: linux has tremendous power, is distributed widely and its free. I know a lot of people who feel contempt towards anyone who would complain about caveats of this but there are many and they should be discussed openly. As someone relying on open source technologies, as someone frustrated by broken open source technologies you are obligated to see this through and if a solution doesn't exist you are obligated to make and publish a solution and place blame on the actors who tried to break you.

There are billion dollar companies, special interests and government agencies who's entire stake technology relies solely on subverting open source at this point. When I frustrate myself with days, even weeks, trying to solve a problem that I should have to solve because it's been solved before I usually end up finding out that someone else has had the same problem, fixed it too and yet for some reason the patch never made it to the release or when it did it got pulled for reasons unknown. Look at what the recording industry did to DVD Decrypter. Look at what US intelligence did to OpenSSH. The want everything you touch to be a backdoor, a smoking gun, another sale for them, etc.

Sometimes I tell myself that if there's something I can't do it's because Someone doesn't want me to and spent an enormous amount of effort subverting me just so I'd give up and spend money on their glorified trojan horse. It adds to the satisfaction when I finally discover that someone is actively abusing their powers rolling back the clock on an open source projects for no apparent reason whatsoever. Why would someone try to make Linux look bad? Take a guess who they're taking kickbacks from ...

Don't give in to the FUD. See it through. They hate it when you know how to work around all the obstacles they've intentionally placed in front of you which only makes it more satisfying when you win.

Shine them on by finding a solution and publishing not only your findings but any evidence that you can find that proves that someone doesn't want you to succeed. The only thing wrong with dedicating your life to fighting these monsters is the fact that you shouldn't have to. That's how they win. You spend all this time stumbling over nonsense they trip you up with so you can't focus on what's actually important to you. See it through and accomplish your goals to the letter.

The heuristic is this: weigh the difficulty of a task against how simple it should have been and how illogical it is that it hasn't been done in the first place. If something easy seems impossible it's because someone wants you to chase your tail. See it through and if you can prove you're being subverted talk to Glenn Greenwald and Jacob Applebaum. I'm sure they would love to hear about it.

TL;DR: it's a conspiracy.