It's really not political correctness to just keep technical discussions calm and non-personal. Meanwhile, consider the chilling effect that kind of attitude has. I know quite a few skilled engineers who would just walk out if their boss talked to them like that, regardless of the merits of the underlying discussion. It's just wildly unprofessional and when Linus does that kind of thing, it sets the tone for all the other Linux-wannabe's who think "great engineers flame people!! i should flame people too!!".
In this case Linus had tried for quite some time to get the person in question to stop pushing crap. Linus eventually told him he'd stop merging his code. From that point of view, if he'd walked after being talked to like that, it'd have been seen as a benefit by many.
EDIT: I find it quite amusing that I get downvoted for a fairly dispassionate and mostly objective explanation of context, yet several of my far more subjective and controversial comments elsewhere in this thread have gotten heavily upvoted. Figures.
It's quite possible to make it clear that he'd stop accepting code without descending to abusive language. Erecting a 'safety barrier' against someone who was doing a poor job and being verbally abusive are entirely unrelated.
You say that blocking these merge requests would benefit many; so be it. Being polite about doing that would benefit the same set of people, and may others at the same time.
In my opinion, there is a huge distance between politely pointing out the faults and problems with something and sugar-coating.
And maybe this approaches the crux of the problem. It seems that there is a false dichotomy at work here.
Being polite (or, indeed, just not being verbally abusive) takes less time and energy, and is overwhelmingly more effective, than being overly abrasive.
I don't believe 'Sugar-coating' has anything to do with being polite and accurate. 'Sugar-coating' is all about being less accurate and on point.
When we're dealing with someone who repeatedly have ignored advice, instructions and admonitions and continues to cause major breakage, then yes, it would be sugar-coating to write something similar to what you suggested.
The point is that the person in question was being rude and disrespectful by continuing to ignore the instructions he'd been given in the past, and repeatedly caused a lot of very real, very heartfelt anger from a lot of people over the time he wasted for them.
Pretending not to be angry over that is very much sugar-coating to me.
Now, there are nicer ways of being direct and expressing anger, but pretending there was no anger and no valid reasons to be angry would be flat out dishonest. And I really don't think the recipient in this case had any reason to expect any civility from Linus at this point, even if others might choose less direct language.
Exactly. And I'm not impressed with the way the "professionalism" police are so quick to condemn Torvald for one justifiably angry email while giving such a conspicuous pass to a sustained pattern of passively aggressive, measurably destructive, and flatly un-collegial behavior that is the true definition of unprofessional.
In other words, there's a pretty egregious double standard being applied here. In my experience, that typically favors the kinds of abusive personalities who have discovered some easily-exploited aspect of the social system to simultaneously provide cover for their own bad behavior while limiting their target's ability to retaliate.
If I were on a team stuck with this guy, and required by professional norms to bite my tongue, I can safely say I'd take supreme satisfaction in seeing such a nasty employee get this severely excoriated. And make no mistake, this isn't about "feedback" or "criticism". It's about driving the guy out of the shop in a way that provides a suitable catharsis for everyone who has had to put up with his actual and sustained unprofessionalism.
Of course, tf this were an arbitrary, unjustified, or otherwise baseless response, I could see how it would be hugely damaging to Torvald's authority, and the trust he relies on. But in a case like this, the opposite seems true. And if it puts others who present similar problems on notice, so much the better.
