We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14974666 and marked it off-topic.

> If Linus is a complete asshole and tells you to fuck off

Consider that he might be right and not a complete asshole. Also, consider that you are not the person he insults but someone else. You're making up this strawman very craftily but it is still a strawman: people are coarse in their conversation all the time, it's not a big deal until the recipient declares it to be a big deal. And then they - not you, unless you are the recipient - have all the right in the world to feel offended and to respond in kind if you feel like it or to do it a bit more precise and with more grace if that's your make-up.

But for all the weight given to 'free speech' the fact is that all you're doing is trying to control someone else's language and I find that a far bigger problem than someone throwing out the occasional insult in the process of communicating with others, there are plenty of reasons why that could happen, personality, lack of patience, culture and so on and all of those would be less of an issue than someone deliberately trying to control how others communicate.

Now if Linus had said something like 'you're dumb because you're a woman' or something to that effect I could understand the outrage. But calling someone an asshole - justified or not - when you're not the person being addressed is not enough grounds to embark on a moral crusade and is not enough grounds to lie the diversity problem in tech at that persons feet.

Speaking as someone who has been insulted personally and publicly by Linus, on a topic that Linus was completely wrong about, he's a real asshole. And it's extremely well documented that he's an asshole. I don't need to "consider that he might […] not be a complete asshole", because that's already a given.

> You're making up this strawman very craftily

I'm not making a straw man at all, and I resent your attempt to frame my argument in this way. Since this is how you choose to argue, I'm not going to engage with you any more.

Well, you could have put that gem out front instead of pulling a rabbit out of your hat. Otherwise to me you're just another anonymous person arguing on a forum rather than someone with a specific and relevant gripe.

If there is a specific case where you disagreed with Linus and he insulted you then I understand why you want to take this up in this way but I notice that Linus is not a participant in the discussion here so you're going to get the general case, not the specific one.

You've made up your mind about a person based on an online interaction that clearly left you seething and I'm perfectly ok with that. For all I know it was the defining point of your career and you've chosen to go into crusade mode, there is a good reason why I don't contribute to open source, I don't feel like getting heat from both maintainers and users. At the same time if I would go and do that I'd wear my flameproof jacket to work just in case. In short: lighten up, likely everybody but you has forgotten this interaction and it is a huge deal to you and hardly anybody else noticed. You should have seen some of the stuff that came my way on a public website, heck, even on HN I've been threatened with bodily harm.

Question: Did you contact him about this off-line, and did you try to work it out somehow? If not I'd suggest you do that, maybe you can get this behind you.