The point of technical fora is to have effective, high bandwidth discussions on technical matters.
If I want a hug, I can go get a real one from a real live human being - and I'll interact with them in an appropriate way for that context, too.
And yes, this is a throwaway account. It might be worth considering why I created it to respond to you, just based on your post above.
My opinion is my opinion, and you're welcome to hold a different one, but I'll damn well stand behind holding mine and explain the reasons why I do as myself, with my reputation and my ability and everything I've ever said attached to it, including the stupid, horrible mistakes (of which this post may later seem to me to be one :). Because the fact that I do my best to make less such mistakes every year speaks for me as well.
You are absolutely right that it is worth considering why you created an anonymous coward account, as slashdot calls them, rather than speaking your opinions as yourself - no matter how strongly you disagree with me I respect your right to do so even if I have no respect at all for your arguments or position. But now I have no way to know you, and no way to respond to a human being rather than a (to me) meaningless transient front so I don't really feel like I can draw any useful conclusions from such consideration.
I don't know why you'd want that.
If you want to disagree with me, disagree with me as -you-, so I know who I'm debating with and can frame a constructive reply.
Perhaps the fact that I would rather disagree honestly with another human being, and that you would ... I don't know what you'd rather ... is the point. Perhaps it isn't. But now I can't know.
Arguing for "most people" holds no weight with me when I'm unable to even confirm that you're a person. Maybe I'm too web 1.0 or something. If so, sorry.
Please do, however, consider responding to me authentically; I'm always willing to debate whether I'm right or not, but I've always been rather fonder of debating people than will-o-the-wisps.
Maybe that's just me. Deciding that is left as an exercise to the reader :)
Of course such options exist. Honest and authentic communication is a crucial tool to avoid disagreement descending into flamewars.
Linus' original post attracted a message from an original developer saying "yeah, I hate that too, we'll try and get round to fixing it". That suggests that his choice of option was really rather constructive, peanut gallery interruptions to the useful parts aside.
