[tyingq]

I like the new tone. It is clear and conveys severity/urgency without the swearing and personal attacks.

Compare to: https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/3/8/495 That's the same guy, so clearly, the swearing didn't have much lasting effect :)

[mmirate]

That's one person of many. And it's not a question of aesthetics of the message in the short term, but of the quality of the overall results in the long term and the effort needed to achieve them.

Hopefully this won't happen, but it's entirely possible that this change will result in Linus finding himself with a much greater number of broken, half-broken and/or subtly-broken PRs to review than ever before, increasing the chances of something like https://lwn.net/Articles/57135/ succeeding.

And having a kernel backdoor ship worldwide is way worse than having a few recalcitrant kernel developers be exposed to - oh no! - coarse language. Results > the "fee fees".

[saagarjha]

Are you saying that Linus has been able to review fewer patches because his personality has driven people away, and by being nicer he’d be overwhelmed trying to review code?

[mmirate]

I'm saying that the patches he has reviewed may have been given more attention-to-detail by submitters and lieutenants because of his personality, in which case by being nicer he would lend his time to be abused to a greater degree. Note that I said "more patches that are broken/semi-broken/subtly-broken", not "more patches overall".