On the sickness of our community

It is certainly abuse but I perceive no threat in it. Without threat aspect, Linus's rants tend to be just colorful and amusing. This is all, of course, PR nightmare stuff -- if you want to make the case that Linus is a deranged psychopath, then just collect half dozen of his rants in one post and insinuate some ugly facts about his person, and call it a day.

Linus seems to have said that he believes his use of language is justified and correct, and any problems are at audience's end. This is a point that one can debate. I can not see any general solution to problems of miscommunication -- sometimes the speaker was unclear, sometimes the receiver imposed meaning that was not correct.

This society seems to favor the idea that speaker must always be very careful and if words are misunderstood, it is the speaker's responsibility. It is probably appropriate in mass media situation where there is one speaker and millions of receivers, and such messages must be crafted with care. On the other hand, human social behavior in a mailing list -- while technically viewable to public -- is hardly the sort of public broadcast where utmost care is required.