It occurs to me that you might be touching on the difference between &quot;earn respect&quot; and &quot;earn freedom from disrespect&quot;.<p>Also, the need to distinguish what different respects mean. There is respect as a person, versus respect as a knowledgeable kernel developer.<p>(They are not always easy to separate. If someone keeps pushing their bad development ideas even though they have been thoroughly debunked, just because of their ego, I think my respect for them as a person will drop somewhat not only as a developer.)<p>Still, the default toward some new person should be: basic respect as a person, neutral as a developer. I think that this is the case in the OSS project model; but then where it breaks down is that if the latter respect tanks, then the former does also. I.e. you&#x27;re a good person if you&#x27;re a good hacker (in particular one with mostly the same opinions as me), otherwise you&#x27;re <i>non grata</i> scum.