They're trying to do a logical OR for all the light that comes in during a long exposure, as in an old film camera with a long shutter time.
That may have worked with analog film before we had satellites, but Starlink is just the latest and brightest addition to the sky that makes that an increasingly bad idea. Change is hard, but it's not that difficult.
Instead, AND a bunch of shorter exposures. Then, your streaks are not streaks, but a series of point sources that can be removed trivially.
And who will pay for all those necessary changes? Keep in mind that this is complex stuff, you don't just hack a perl script and be done with it. Anybody who thinks it's that simple is suffering full-blown Dunning-Kruger.
If I poo in your front yard, would you be happy with me telling you simply "well you can just remove it, what's the big deal?" Or rather, pooing regularly somewhere on a lawn in a public park that you really like and visit daily.
That may have worked with analog film before we had satellites, but Starlink is just the latest and brightest addition to the sky that makes that an increasingly bad idea. Change is hard, but it's not that difficult.
Instead, AND a bunch of shorter exposures. Then, your streaks are not streaks, but a series of point sources that can be removed trivially.