Of course he may have just had an especially heavy accent!
Doesn't even need to be a civilisation. There are commercial services available for individuals or organisations to broadcast whatever the hell they feel like into space for whatever reason. IIRC SFX magazine used to broadcast a
My admitted tangent is that it's a sign of respect, giving a nod of the head or a tip of the hat to the original developers. Because although it's very tempting to "stick it to the Man" as some say, The Man in this case was just a handful of guys. We aren't/weren't just some anonymous faceless corporate drones without feelings. I'm delighted when people remember stuff I've worked twenty years later.
No, there's isn't a black and white viewpoint here. The port to iPhone doesn't materially affect me at all, but I still care about it.
The key elements in human thinking are not numbers but labels of fuzzy sets. -- L. Zadeh