On kernel mailing list behavior

As with so many things it depends on the context. It is acceptable in the UK to say 'fuck' as a response cry, e.g. after you stubbed your toe (if they banned that they'd have nobody with English as their native language left that could work for them at all). It is borderline acceptable to call code fucking awful (I tended to do it as a self-deprecating joke for code I wrote myself, but even then it's best not to do it if members of high management are around as they had their senses of humour surgically removed). It is defintely not acceptable to e.g. call another person, especially a coworker and *most* especially a customer a 'useless fucker' let alone anything more severe.

So it's all contextual.