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Like all software projects, glibc and the kernel are resistant to change. The kernel not (often) unreasonably so. Drepper was notorious for being unreasonable.

Gregkh gives talks about kernel maintenance, here's an excerpt:

    It is in my self-interest to ignore your patch [...]
    So your goal is, when sending a patch, is to give me NO excuse to not
    accept it. To make it such that if I ignore it, or reject it, I am the one
    that is the problem here, not you.
https://github.com/gregkh/presentation-linux-maintainer/blob...

Simply, Drepper's excuses sucked, he was the problem.

For casual observer like me it appears both are technically brilliant individuals who have strong opinions and dont suffer fools lightly.

Also, perception of Linus' attitude is more smoke than fire. He does suffer fools lightly, it's the people he expects better of or explicitly provoke him that get the angry responses that make LKML show up on social media.



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