Every time Linus Torvalds' rude behavior comes up on HN, people leap to his defense. Then, people leap on top of those people for leaping to his defense. Personally, I fall strongly in the "he's rude and annoying and should stop it" camp. For the sake of productive discussion, I'd like to list a few things that are not valid defenses to his dickishness:<p>1) "He's a visionary developer." Yes, but plenty of visionaries are also friendly and polite. You can have a strong opinion and argue it strongly without descending into namecalling.<p>2) "He's built something millions use." That we live a world where having success allows you to be a jerk is a bug, not a feature. Respect for the Linux kernel would be respecting the people who work on it, which Linus rarely does.<p>3) "Kernel developers are used to this kind of behavior and can take it." That doesn't meant they ought to have to. And plenty of kernel developers have left. It feels like there's a big to-do about somebody retiring from the kernel once every couple of years, at least.<p>4) "It's his project and he can do what he wants with it." Maybe. It's largely the world's project now. But even if it were totally his, having the right to do something doesn't mean one ought to do something.<p>5) "You couldn't do it, so shut up and let Linus do his job." It's not, and has never been, about me.<p>I hope that by listing these, I can short-circuit some of the repetitive arguments on this topic... or at least confine them to one comment chain.