What I thought was more interesting (Linus noted "Nothing really exciting happened since -rc7...") was the exchange between Linus and Peter Zijlstra, in particular this Linus eruption: https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/5/19/97
> And I *do* know that the real world simply isn't simple enough that we could > ever do a perfect job, so don't even try - instead aim for "understandable, > maintainable, and gets the main issues roughly right". It's striking that his manner is blunt and over-general... and his technical content is also blunt and over-general. He's known for his pragmatic and effective engineering decisions.
Toward better NUMA scheduling http://lwn.net/Articles/486858/
Peter's cited email: http://lwn.net/Articles/486850/
Actually, in reviewing the data, it seems this issue has been around for a long time, and could be the root of Linus's irritation in the first place. Perhaps he feels no headway is being made for such a long time, even the smallest perceived misstep sets him off.
If nothing else, I would love to actually see some technically detailed papers come out of this that get to the root of the problem, propose solutions to it, and identify what of those solutions are being tested and when they are expected to be implemented. Nothing like a good argument between engineers to get a root cause rooted out and a solution in place.