I'm not trying to be pedantic here but, despite your quote marks, Linus never said that.
My interpretation of that email chain reads: anyone who is stupid enough to continue reading byte-by-byte after being told that it's a bad idea should be retroactively aborted.
The implied subject makes a big difference. (I still think it's over the line but I understand that everyone makes mistakes in the heat of the moment)
WRT what specifically Linus did and didn't say, that's a fair reading.
And everybody, myself included, says things out of frustration, in the heat of the moment. That's not what I'm talking about here.
I'm talking about how many (most?) open source technical communities are very much ok with language that is abusive. Indeed, many take pride in that fact.
When I say something that's inappropriate, I'll make a point of retracting it later on when I'm calm.
My interpretation of that email chain reads: anyone who is stupid enough to continue reading byte-by-byte after being told that it's a bad idea should be retroactively aborted.
The implied subject makes a big difference. (I still think it's over the line but I understand that everyone makes mistakes in the heat of the moment)