> Open source principals have always been eccentric (Torvalds, Raymond(!), etc.), and the FOSS community tolerated it not only because of their technical contri

> Open source principals have always been eccentric (Torvalds, Raymond(!), etc.), and the FOSS community tolerated it not only because of their technical contributions, but because the open source community itself is an expression of tolerance based on shared objectives. I think you're confusing two separate issues. Torvalds' acidic method of communication is certainly eccentric. But from my casual reading of LKML what he communicates is not. Like: * some patch is prone to bugginess and not suitable to merge * some patch shows that the submitter doesn't understand some fundamental aspect of C and thus isn't suitable to merge as written * some patchset looks similar to some previous subsystem that caused massive problems and should therefore be avoided * the patch was measured to break things or perform poorly * the patch is shoehorning in a feature that doesn't belong in the kernel * some non-technical proposal would cause future problems for Kernel devs and should be avoided In the case of Stallman's joke, we can certainly say his method of communication-- popping in to make a surprise decision by fiat-- is eccentric. But we can also say the content of what he is communicating is also eccentric. What possible rationale could there be to tying up volunteer glibc maintainers' time for a bike-shedding session about a decades-old joke? It's the difference between someone with a Penguin fetish favoring Penguin-based metaphors, and someone with a Gnu fetish forcing you to sit through 125 "funny" videos of Gnus. Scratch that-- there are 10 more "Abortion Joke" messages from April. So make that 126 "funny" videos about Gnus.