> resulting in one of the contributors eventually quitting over loss of faith in the kernel development process.<p>Let's be honest and call it what it was: "flamed himself into a temper tantrum".<p>The sad thing is that exactly this outcome of demanding more clear policy was the clear and better alternative to flamewar'ing from the get-go. Did the flames help get there? Not sure, maybe, but I don't think so, and they did cost a lot of people all around a lot of time, emotional energy and grey hair.<p>btw: I'm vocal about this because I'm a maintainer (not on the Linux kernel). Establishing a practice of people flaming and throwing temper tantrums in Linux kernel maintenance would absolutely simmer down into other projects. This can't and mustn't be how we work. Especially since maintenance resources are spread thin enough & overloaded already (a lot of commercial entities care only about shipping features, not doing grunt maintenance and bugfixes.)