[peterwwillis]

My theory about this is that Linus treats his mailing list like a semi-public IRC chatroom (I mean, it is his mailing list for his kernel, so it makes sense) and HNers are not accustomed to that kind of cross-over if they've even ever idled on an irc channel run by hackers. It usually gets much more crass in there, so in that context these kind of comments make sense.

But when you consider Linus is responsible for, I dunno, billions? trillions? in spending on technology based on his OS, it's also easy to understand people getting nervous or offended by IRC-style banter. It's like seeing the CEO of a large company make jokes about retards. Pretty off-putting.

(And no, of course Linus is not a "CEO of Linux" and he doesn't owe anybody anything, i'm just saying I get how people could feel shocked or offended by his behavior)