He's not calling for someones death. He's using hyperbole to make a point.

You're of course free to find that offensive, but if you think he's genuinely questioning whether or not another human being should be allowed to live or survive, you don't understand the message.

EDIT: It's also a point that likely stems from longstanding frustration. The amount of userspace software that does stupid amounts of system calls because people still do not realise how expensive system calls are is astounding. My favourite high profile pet peeve with this used to be the MySQL client library (don't know if it's been fixed) that used to do an astounding number of tiny read()'s which could have been cut to a tiny fraction with some basic user-space buffering. You can often find substantial bottlenecks in applications in about 10 seconds by attaching strace and look for stupid amounts of syscalls.

One can recognize that he is not literally calling for someone's death, and still find it unacceptable.

What's the minimum level of frustration that justifies this kind of thing.

It can't be measured logically (unless you want to hook everyone up with a 24/7 hormone log) as it is emotionally driven.

I believe that is the point GFK_of_xmaspast is making; it's done to make the person yelling to feel better, but it is counter-productive.

It's not to be taken literally. Still though, it seems over the top.

I think part of the problem with Linus' style is that people will inevitably try and imitate him. Not many will manage the intelligence and coding skills, but pretty much everyone can be a jerk if they put their mind to it.

I suppose you can say it's not his fault if people do that, but perhaps with a bit more kindness (to people, not to their bad ideas), the world would be a better place.

It's a language construct, a figure of speech, nobody is being realistically threatened

I'm puzzled by how someone can miss that, but of course this is HN and some people take everything literally.

> but of course this is HN and some people take everything literally.

I have my pet theory that getting outraged about random things like that is not genuine, but just signalling. You can see a lot of this kind of behaviour among the social justice movement.

Be outraged on someone else's behalf, get attention, ???, PROFIT?

hyperbole or not, credible threat or not - questioning other humans livelihood is unacceptable in this setting. It's overly aggressive and attacks the person behind the code. I'd rate "you're not worth living" the ultimate insult.

One doesn't have to take something literally to feel like is hostile and aggressive.

It's supposed to be aggressive. The question is whether it's unjustifiably aggressive.

Abusive language is still abusive if even used as a figure of speech.

Because SJW culture (which has a sickeningly strong presence here) has convinced everyone that they have a right to be offended, and this right needs to be enforced through every nook and cranny of the Internet.

Indeed. What the hell is with this "right to be offended" anyway? Not being easily offended is a sign of being a mature adult.

The problem in essence comes down to only dealing in absolutes. There may be a time or place for anything, and the sign of experience is to know when that time and place is.

Sadly the web has made it all too easy to take something out of its context.

Because anything a person says in the internet (or in real life) should be taken serious and literally, and should be executed as swiftly as possible.

Wishing someones death is a spitting insult in many cultures and for good reasons.

Many insults are not meant literally.