I urge all the people who haven't to actually read the mailing list post (link [0] from lobster_johnson), and note that (from the register article): """ The ra

I urge all the people who haven't to actually read the mailing list post (link [0] from lobster_johnson), and note that (from the register article): """ The rant is entirely impersonal: it rails against code, not people. Those who contributed the offending code will have no doubt of Torvalds' feelings towards it and the open nature of kernel development means it would not be hard to identify those responsible. Torvalds names no names, however. """ Linus is passionate about what he does, and as he has explained several times before, the reach and the medium make him easily misunderstood if he is all polite and politically correct, so he makes sure there is no way he is misunderstood. Let me ask you this - after this issue, does anyone here think Linus will be willing to accept the usub()/uadd() calls into the kernel any time soon? Had Linus answered politely and politically correct, he would have had to do that about ten times as much, because (a) other people wouldn't notice or think that this response doesn't apply to their special snowflake code, and (b) those who know it applies to would feel that there is room for discussion. Linus is herding cats without paying them, and has been doing this amazingly well for over 20 years now. Whether or not you subscribe to it, his management style works, produces amazing results. At the scale that linus manages, you (probably) have to be dictator, and (likely) cannot be a polite one. [0] http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1510.3/02866.html http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1510.3/02866.html