The formating of code has a significant impact on where merges introduce conflicts or not. Also formating has an influence on the readability of the code. Linus remarks that in his editor the indentation looks corrupted. I suspect that this is due to a diff erent tab size. Tab sizes of 2, 4, and 8 are commonly used.

It looks like Linux is making a joke before he deals with the real issues. One should realize that humor is cultural depended and that something that is considered a joke in one culture is considered rude in another and the reverse. In some cultures, humor is very subtile, such that outsiders often do not notice that they are made fun of, whilebin other cultures the use of swearwords is used in daily language without it meaning anything special.