[bityard]

It's the same reason you dress nice and comb your hair for a job interview.

If the developer of the patch couldn't get the easy minor details right before submitting, I wouldn't have much confidence that they spent a lot of effort thinking about the hard, major details either.

[lostmsu]

I think this is very backwards. When solving major problems details of taste are usually a blocker or waste of time.

[dpcx]

I think a law that says speeding is very backwards. When I'm late, details like how far over the speed limit I'm going are a blocker or a waste of time.

The kernel team came up with rules about how code is formatted. If you don't follow the rules, they are under no obligation to allow your code to be merged in to the main repo, and in fact, are within their rights to reject it. I take the initial response more as a "I'm going to let you off with a warning" versus "Here's your ticket, see you in court"

[lostmsu]

Unlike code style, speed limits are not a matter of taste.