IMO, the thing that he doesn't seem to understand is the difference between criticizing the implementation and criticizing the person. Pointing out flaws in the

IMO, the thing that he doesn't seem to understand is the difference between criticizing the implementation and criticizing the person. Pointing out flaws in the code is not the same as calling a person stupid. If he could just learn to explain why the code is bad most of his people problems would disappear. Not all, since some people take criticism of their code poorly, but if you aren't committed to the highest quality code possible then you probably shouldn't be working on something like kernel development. There are some ways to reduce problems with those kinds of people though. Asking probing questions to get the person to think through the problems on their own to fix them for example. Or having a standards document that all kernel code is expected to conform to so you can just point out parts that don't conform to the standard.