Both the points:

1. I don't want to see political messages in unrelated delivery mechanisms

and

2. I created $PRODUCT as a delivery mechanism for a political message

are equally valid.

I feel that the problem that comes about is when a $PRODUCT was not created as a delivery mechanism but is being co-opted into being one at some later stage; the audience feels deceived and the creator feels that the audience is ungrateful.

I'm not very familiar with Notepad++ (having never used it, nor experienced any desire to try it), but I'm fairly certain that the creator has been political long enough now that the audience cannot complain about the message being delivered with the product.

It's like complaining about Vim having a message for the plight of Ugandans - it's been there for decades; too late to complain now about it.

I'm more sympathetic to complaints over projects which never had a specific political message suddenly acquiring one when they realised what a large audience they had, or when new people join a decades-old project and introduce a political message that was never there before. I can sorta understand outrage then.