Let the community off-the-hook

I have to say I'm a little disappointed with the thesis of this article. I think it lets the developer community off-the-hook too easily from contributing to improving the situation. I certainly didn't read Lennart's comments as blaming Linus for leading the charge of invective against him. I think the wider point (it's been made before) is that it's all too easy for people to read the public mailing lists (or news coverage of the latest flaming) and draw the conclusion that it's an acceptable way to communicate in the community. Especially as the context of Linus' use of colourful language is directed at someone he already knows and respects but is underlining his disappointment that a given pull request doesn't meet the usual high standards with hyperbole.

I was debating this with Steven Rostedt on his G+ posting and I do take his point that lkml has improved on what it was like in the early years. However I think it still has a reputation of being a place where you need to be wearing your asbestos underwear and ready to give back as good as you get in fiery language. And that frankly is a little sad.