You are probably already aware of this, but it is worth noting that categorisation needn't have hard boundaries, e.g. Lack of Privacy may not translate to lack of Security for everyone, but for example, a whistleblower, that can literally mean getting Boing'd
I'm sorry but there likely never be a long-term alternative for free software such as this on that platform. Neither you nor the developer has much say on how to use it.
Now what was the cause of the bug? Fat fingering human error during release.
There isn't a singular "the" cause usually, and if we do want to press for it, I'd say an aggressive deadline for a major product that needs engineers to slave away was the cause. At that point bugs become stastically inevitable. Whoever decided on that promised deadline was the first responsible person.
See, replication isn't a problem if your entire field is vibes-based. A lot of economics papers I come across are like that (so much so that I am close to writing off the entire decipline as unscientific). The diff in the level of rigour you would see in e.g. particle physics versus in economics is baffling.
It used to be psychology as well but I am noticing they are more than aware of their replication crisis lately. Whereas economics feels pseudoscience with a maths clothing.
Reputation comes from public, it requires collective action and coordination. Collective action is not easy, but it is not as hard it might seem either. For example, many open source projects in software are highly reputable without a private ownership.
You are probably already aware of this, but it is worth noting that categorisation needn't have hard boundaries, e.g. Lack of Privacy may not translate to lack of Security for everyone, but for example, a whistleblower, that can literally mean getting Boing'd