&gt; The rants are newsworthy events. A polite message would not have been picked up by the Register and other news sources. His tone helped magnify his message.<p>You are wrong. Because the message that was in the media was about Linus being a jerk. The actual useful discussion, about the usage of compiler features in the kernel, got completely lost.<p>Linus has a lot of weight in the Linux community, obviously. He does not need to yell and scream like a little child to get his concerns known. He does not need to elevate a rant to a level where media picks it up.<p>All he needs to do is say in polite words that he does not want this kind of magic in the kernel sources. That would be respectful and professional.