I strongly empathize with this decision, and I think it's unfortunate to lose a valuable developer because many people feel a lack of basic politeness is a virt

I strongly empathize with this decision, and I think it's unfortunate to lose a valuable developer because many people feel a lack of basic politeness is a virtue. It is a hard problem to solve, and the open source model greatly aggravates the problem. Within an open source project, no one is accountable for their actions, by design. This ends up meaning you can say whatever hurtful things you want, and unless you really cross a line, most people except for the target of the attack will ignore it. If you haven't been the target of such frequent negative reinforcement, it's easy to tell others to "shake it off" and learn from the experience. And maybe you can do that a handful of times. But it really drags to have the work you put a lot of effort into described as crap and yourself physically threatened for having dared to bother someone else with it. Eventually, you're not going to want to work on it anymore. The reason it's a hard problem to solve, though, is that sometimes you do get crap code, or bad community members, and you need a mechanism for dealing with that, too. Open source means you effectively can't "fire" anyone from the project. The best you could do is ban them from all of the project communication channels, or make it extremely clear that they're not welcome, and well now you're back to negativity. On a project the size of the kernel, where do you draw the line? I guess if your attitude is "software uber alles" then hounding and insulting submitters that aren't up to standard seems like a legitimate way to improve your product. But if you're more concerned about creating a welcoming and diverse development environment, then it's time to lighten up and dial down the vitriol. Those goals are at odds, and a balance needs to be found. Sharp's departure might be a sign that the current balance is wrong.