[arp242]

He meant to say "the Rust code will spread everywhere [like cancer]".

I agree it's rude, offensive, and hostile, but there are degrees of things and context matters. "You are cancer" would be much worse. I feel we should try and interpret things in good faith and maintain some perspective. For a single word like this: you can just read over it (which is also what the other Rust people did).

Certainly outright removing Hellwig from the Linux project, as Marcan suggested, is bizarrely draconian.

As I argued a few days ago: part of "being nice" is accepting that people aren't perfect and dealing with that – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42940591