Personally I haven't "observed" any effects one or the other, but I'm not a kernel developer either...

I think it more or less started with this, who (Sarah/Sage Sharp) used swear words themselves, so hardly fair to criticise Linus for doing the same, who in that case, seemed to be more polite.

While I can see your point, there's also a flip side to that. That being that, pointing out valid flaws could also be seen by some as "rude", "unprofessional", etc. To me, when you're talking about a valid flaw, particularly when the person concerned should know better and still submits sub-standard work/code, then "being politically correct" could also minimize the problem, therefore they don't take it as seriously as it should be taken. A prime example of what I'm talking about is here, in that case, it should have been obvious with just a simple compile that the code should not have been submitted in the first place, and the author(s) of that code clearly didn't test it properly. Surely it doesn't take a genius to figure out that there where problems with that code, and they should have been fixed before it was submitted, so I think in that case, Linus was right to say what he said. And to me, was simply stating what he was rightly thinking about it. I would not call that "unprofessional", it would, in my book, been "unprofessional" to say nothing in that case.

At the end of the day, there needs to be a proper balance, as well as what "being professional" means in practice, and there are clearly defined and accepted practices that promote a proper balance. And any CoC should be clearly accepted by all that fall under it, not just imposed on people. I don't think a CoC in itself is a bad thing, but when it impedes people being able to point out legitimate concerns/flaws, then that in my book is when it becomes a bad thing. I think some people just don't like/cannot handle criticism, but are quite happy to dish it out to others, otherwise known is complete hypocrisy (it's sad to say, but there are at least one or two just like that here - no names mentioned). It's the intent and meaning behind it that matter in my book, not how it's phrased/words used. I would much prefer someone be open and honest with me if I'm completely wrong about something, rather than sit there and sugar coat it, as I may not grasp the full seriousness of it, if they did sugar coat it. Once again, it's called a balance between conduct and best practices, both best software development practices, as well as personal conduct.

Because the danger is that you end up with a bunch of mindless drones that are more concerned with "political correctness", then doing the best job/work that they can. This doesn't help anyone, certainly not the development of the Linux kernel (or the development of anything else).

I wish I knew what those Finnish words at the end mean! I tried googling them, but all I got was a paraphrase (which I could have guessed for myself) and a statement that the first word is the worst swearword that exists in any language.

Perhaps Ondoho could elucidate?

If you're talking about my post #16 and where he says "perkeleen vittupää" in the second link; then according to Google Translate it means "the devil's head".

Only that?!! The paraphrase I read was much more entertaining.

Sorry to disappoint Hazel. What was the paraphrase you read?

It said "an evil and malicious m*****f****r"!

Yeah, that's more entertaining alright!

actually vittu is the most used swearword in Finland and means the female sexual organ.
so it's not just a "hellish head" but a "hellish c**t-head".

Let's get serious. The reason for the swearing in this case is that the kernel is Linus Torvalds' baby and, when he sees bad code being put into it, he reacts just like a mother who sees someone feeding her child junk food. This passion is part of what makes Linux great.

You get the same in Richard Stallman too. I don't agree with everything he says, because I believe that freedom includes the freedom to choose my own hardware and not be limited to what comes with FOSS drivers. Applying that to printers means I would have to buy HP and become the victim of their dishonest policies on ink cartridges (further details on request). So I use a Brother laser printer with a proprietary binary driver. But his passion for FOSS was necessary for the GNU project to get off the ground.

We are standing on the shoulders of giants and they have given us the best operating system in the world. I don't care if they are male or female, gay or straight, autistic or neurotypical. But I want them to be people of passion because that makes them great programmers. I would be sorry if a concern for "balance" or inclusiveness led to passion and genius being screened out.

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Not meaning to be rude to you Hazel, and while I agree with what you have said; I was being serious in my posts above (particularly my first post to this thread). And what you said above is more or less what I was saying before. So to put in another way: people should have every right, without some CoC getting in the way, to point out any problems in the kernel code (or any other code), without fear of being "punished" for simply raising legitimate concerns/problems. Even if that means being direct about it, provided that the issue(s) being raised are valid. Obviously Linus has a "special interest" in the kernel, because as you say, it's his "baby" after all.

Obviously someone's sexual preferences, gender, race, etc have nothing to do with how good or bad of a programmer they are or aren't. So there is clearly no need for these things to even come into discussions about any problems with the kernel (or anything else). So I wouldn't regard someone being racist, etc as being "professional", and it is not in anyone's interests to even be raising such things at all.

As far as closed source drivers and such are concerned; and personally, while it's always preferable to have an open-source driver, at the end of the day, the hardware manufacturer knows the most about their particular hardware (or least you would hope so), so they are in the prime position to write the best drivers for it. Therefore, and as you touch on above, sometimes it's the only option to use a closed source driver, and people shouldn't be discriminated against just because they wish to use a closed source driver. Personally, I use what fits my needs the best, and wouldn't begrudge someone else from doing the same. But, I can understand Linus's point of view on the subject, in that: if a manufacturer isn't going to provide the relevant details on how their hardware works, then why should he support it? I can understand his point there, and fair enough too.

At the end of the day, the first and foremost concern should be the best interests of the kernel, in regards to the Linux Foundation. I would at least hope that would be obvious to the powers that be.

I also must repeat the following: