You're right - legal action is not always the best tool. And companies resort to it far more often than they ought to. But legal action != lawyers. Lawyers get

You're right - legal action is not always the best tool. And companies resort to it far more often than they ought to. But legal action != lawyers. Lawyers get involved all the time to make sure legal action doesn't happen. In fact, for civil lawyers, that's most of what they do. It's the frothing-at-the-mouth, "we must NEVER do this," all-lawyers-are-evil attitude that gets me here. If Linus had just said "I don't want to over-rely on legal action to get things done, I want to make sure we are not hurting our community relationships," that'd be one thing. But the way he comes at it - like he does with so many other things - is so inflammatory and my-way-or-the-highway that I felt a strong response was required.