31,396 emails · linux-kernel mailing list · February 2002 to August 2026
Linus, Measured
An AI model read every email Linus Torvalds sent to the Linux kernel mailing list and scored its tone. Most of them are calm. When he is angry, it is usually at the code. His 2018 apology was followed by the calmest month in 24 years, and it lasted about four weeks.
The baseline
Mostly, he's fine
The rants are famous, but they are the tail of the distribution. A quarter of his emails score almost zero for harshness: short acks, pull confirmations and technical answers. Nearly half read as plainly neutral.
47.8%neutral
36.1%frustrated
12.7%friendly or joking
3.5%hostile
The target
The code gets it first
When Linus criticises something, it is the code, a patch or a design in 58% of all emails. A person is the target in 7.6%, which is about one criticism in ten.
Who he is talking to matters. People reporting bugs get the gentlest version of him. Maintainers sending pull requests get named three times as often, usually for sending the wrong thing at the wrong time.
2005-09-11 · Re: PCI bug in 2.6.13
No, thank _you_. Disk corruption is a nasty nasty bug, and often very hard to track down.
Linus
2009-08-03 · Re: [PATCH 0/2] proper tty-ldisc refcounting
Absolutely nothing to be sorry about - you've been an exemplary tester with very low latency. Thanks a lot.
Linus
2022-12-22 · Re: [GIT PULL] perf tools changes for v6.2
You are now on my shit-list for violating the Christmas peace with a pull request where most of the contents were not in linux-next, and weren't fixes. I'm PISSED.
Linus
The shape of a rant
Anger takes paragraphs
His short emails are his friendliest: under 200 characters, 30% are jokes or thanks and almost none are attacks. Harshness climbs with length. Emails of 2,000 to 5,000 characters carry 37 personal attacks per 1,000, forty times the rate of a one-liner. When Linus is angry, he explains why at length.
16 September to 22 October 2018
Four quiet weeks
On a Sunday in September 2018, the release note for 4.19-rc4 turned into something else.
My flippant attacks in emails have been both unprofessional and uncalled for. Especially at times when I made it personal.Linus Torvalds · Linux 4.19-rc4 released, an apology, and a maintainership note · 16 Sep 2018
He stepped away and came back on 23 October for the 4.20 merge window. His first 128 emails averaged 0.27 on harshness, against 0.88 earlier in 2018. There were no personal attacks at all. By the second half of November he was back at 0.85.
2019 to 2026
The long come-down, and the relapse
The month did not last, but the change partly did. Personal attacks dropped from about 11 per 1,000 emails in 2015 to 2017 to 4 to 5 in 2020 and 2021. Then they came back. By 2024 the rate was 15 per 1,000, and 2024 to 2026 are his harshest years since 2007.
2019-06-13 · Re: pagecache locking
Bullshit, Dave.
You've made that claim before, and it's been complete bullshit before too, and I've called you out on it then too.
Linus
2025-04-25 · Re: [GIT PULL] bcachefs fixes for 6.15-rc4
Here's a clue, Kent. I told you you were wrong and full of shit.
Linus
The other Linus
He got funnier, too
Friendly and joking emails sank to 9 to 11% between 2008 and 2015, the years of the worst attacks. Since 2020 they have run at 14 to 18%, higher than at any time before. The humour is dry, strange and often at his own expense.
2002-10-31 · Re: What's left over.
Heh. I like my analogies bad. The best analogies should make you go "huh!" - kind of like a pink poodle in a tutu.
Linus
2005-09-21 · Re: [PATCH] Keys: Add possessor permissions
Ok, maybe I'm just strange, but when I see code like
if (is_key_possessed(keyref)) {
I'm inevitably mentally going "Linda Blair! It is spewing pea-soup and rotating its head!"
Maybe not the best of naming practices..
Linus
2003-02-13 · Re: 2.5.60 cheerleading...
Ok, now the thread has moved from the strange to the surreal.
"First thing in the morning" indeed. Trust me, you don't want me doing _anything_ first thing in the morning.
Linus