And what if a guy said exactly the same things?

It is important in a creative-technical environment. To be creative you need to be comfortable and many people will be very uncomfortable if they hear a lot of verbal abuse going on, or are worried knowing that any mistake will result in a tirade, or are just tired of the non stop use of "fucking" as the only adjective and adverb ever used. Sure, if it's rare occasions that you're down right rude then that's ok, but this sort of behavior is often regular and ongoing.

I don't think anyone said the politeness had to be enforced. It would be nice if some people could just consider it as one of the possible alternatives.

But do you need to be blunt all the time? Do you also need to be blunt in public where the entire world will hear it?

She may not have a choice. I suspect it's her job assignment to work with the Linux kernel.

They do tend to not do this in public a lot. Maybe this language comes out into the board room or when the CEO's office door is closed though. Even then this behavior is restricted to the highest levels, since lower and mid level managers are rarely allowed to act this way for very long.

That's the problem I think. Some people haven't figure out that criticism isn't abuse. Maybe their first boss was abusive and they think that this is how you are supposed to do things.

But be careful, some of the BSD families are more dysfunctional than others.

You can reject the code and not hurt feelings. You can also comment privately about the code rather than make sure the dev is publicly embarrassed.

What knife to the back? This rarely happens in any company I've worked for, and yet Linus acts like that is the default behavior if one is forced to act professionally. Now true, maybe reverting to backstabbing is what happens when an asshole is required to be polite in public, but not everyone is an asshole and not everyone who backstabs keeps their job.

However, it IS different than in closed software shops! There are HR departments to handle complaints and managers can't act like they're back in the Mad Men era anymore. Maybe there are startups that act that way but they don't last for long once the company starts growing.

But what if the kernel could be even better that it is now if the mailing list used more respect and had less cursing? Maybe there are some really awesome developers who just can't deal with that environment? How many ex kernel devs are there, maybe some of them decided it was just too much stress to deal with?

So why does he need to yell publicly at this person who screwed up, why not do the yelling in private? The only reason I can think is that he wants to embarrass or humiliate the person, and possibly send out warnings/intimidations to tohers, and that's dickish. The alternate choice of screaming in private means that the developer knows about the mistake, fully understands what Linus wants, but gets to maintain face; in public have a less abusive post about how things need to be revised and please do more testing in the future before committing (which still lets people who are smart figure out who it was that screwed up).

If my boss upbraided me in public for something like that in the same manner that Linus does, then I would know that it is time to get the resume up to date because I'm either going to get fired very soon or else it will be too uncomfortable to continue working there.

What's wrong here is that it requires all developers there have very thick skins. You can be the perfect developer for the kernel in all ways except for having a thin skin, which means you won't fit into that club and shouldn't even try (take those skills somewhere with a more modern approach to management). Open source absolutely has a bad boy image attached to it, and I think many of the developers prefer it that way and so they don't want to change.

This isn't about a woman. This is about someone new coming along and being surprised that the mailing list isn't even remotely like normal corporate politeness. The attitudes before this new person arrived are what's toxic, the difference is that the old timers have built up an immunity to the toxins so that they don't notice it anymore. Nothing at all in this feels like someone played a victim card.

The catch is that you can be stuck in both worlds. You're required at your corporate job to treat coworkers with respect but at the same time your job requires you to interact with a group that doesn't work that way and that you actually find distasteful. You can't back out of either world without serious drawbacks (ie, losing your job).

I think there's some false dichotomy from Linus here. He seems to split it up into either acting that way he does or else it becomes lying and backstabbing, because that's what he thinks "acting professionally" means. Ie, either he wears a bathrobe or else he has to wear a tie.

The backlash here from Linus is not because she's a woman and poeple should stop bringing that card into it. The backlash is because of the anti-corporate attitudes on that mailing list, they want to keep their fun club fun instead of having it be professional.

The whole point of the subject is that some people think it is broke. Though maybe they're not part of the cool kids club yet.