On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 5:24 PM, Sarah Sharp <sarah.a.sharp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 07:42:44PM +0100, Al Viro wrote: >> On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 06:56:16PM +0100, Stefano Stabellini wrote: >> >> > Abuse is never justified, I hope that's clear for everybody. >> >> Depends on details of your definition of abuse. >> >> > So we are down to the definition of verbal abuse. >> > The Oxford dictionary gives me: >> > >> > "speak to (someone) in an insulting and offensive way" >> >> Insufficient details to tell if the statement above is correct. >> Insulting and offensive to *whom*? > > It's not helpful to look at a dictionary definition of verbal abuse, > because it's much too short. > > Here's a much longer description of verbally abusive behaviors: > > http://outofthefog.net/CommonBehaviors/VerbalAbuse.html That definition starts with this: "Any kind of repeated pattern of inappropriate, derogatory or threatening speech directed at one individual by another." The key word being *REPEATED*. I don't see Linus *repeatedly* insulting Mauro (or any other developer), under that definition, it's not verbal abuse. I don't like that definition, but even in that one your claim doesn't stand. -- Felipe Contreras -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe stable" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html