That’s a remarkably measured response from him - no personal attacks, it’s all directed at the argument he believes is invalid. The expressed anger is mostly about having to repeatedly counter the same statement from the same person.

I still wouldn’t use the language in a professional setting, but I know people who would.

I also agree with his position, and it holds for many thing, if something works well you only see it when it goes wrong. Kind survivor bias I guess?

What's missing here is the context. Maybe this is the appropriate tone to talk to this particular person, and he wouldn't get the message otherwise. Having spent years in management I've discovered that with some people a mere hint would be enough to course correct, and with others you need to use direct, unvarnished language to get them to understand things. I never used quite as direct language as this, but I can imagine people and situations which might call for it. Although even then, I'd do it strictly in private.

This is the kind of thing that people who have never managed other people find very hard to understand or appreciate.

I'm also thankful that Linus gets severely upset by things that may degrade Linux IO performance, rather than just kick back, relax, and allow it to be merged.

Tbh I'm glad to see that Linus is still as passionate, opinionated and as concerned about the project as he always was. Was thinking that we were going to get a hippy Linus after his sensitivity training but nope, same old Linus!