“We should all follow Linus’ example”

Linus is a treasure. He is a Beethoven-tier genius with zero filter, and not an ounce of psychopathy, who gave away his life's work for free.

Your average entertainment figure, politician or fortune 500 C-Suiter is a thousand times bigger asshole than Linus is, they (or their handlers) just cover it up.

Linus: "You can disagree with me as much as you want, but during this talk, by definition, anybody who disagrees is stupid and ugly."

Just a cheeky cherry-picked quote :).

>"his use of power demonstrates extreme humility"

Well perhaps, but isn't that just like saying "it could always be worse"?

Personally, I think he could be just a little bit nicer. But then again, as a Linux only user, I am glad "crap" code is kept out...

Linus is honest and doesn't try to deceive or paint anyone in bad light. He will however use strong language; which could be very easily avoided, making his comments example worthy.

Currently I think the community consensus is to not take the comments too seriously, which diminishes their effect, the opposite of what Linus is trying to do with his strong language. If only he did, he would avoid the negative online press, which preys on clicks, and the target audience could focus on the arguments made in the comments.

I've often wondered if, other than a cultural difference (see "management by perkele"), there wasn't also a linguistic aspect to it.

I mean, not being a native speaker can warp one's perception of how strong some expressions are.

I'm okay with tolerating verbal abuse as a gesture of compassion but no fucking way should we characterize this as an ideal. I say it that way to prove I'm not talking about offensive language, if someone said any of my code was brain damaged, I would take it as a personal attack. It's not emphasis, it's cruelty.