> 1. The experiment is not on live, deployed, versions of the kernel.
The patches were merged and the email thread discusses that the patches made it to the stable tree. Some (many?) distributions of Linux have and run from stable.
> 2. There are mechanisms in place for preventing actual merging of the faulty patches.
Those mechanisms failed.
> 3. Even if a patch is merged by mistake, it can be easily backed out or replaced with another patch, and the updates pushed anywhere relevant.
The patches were merged and the email thread discusses that the patches made it to the stable tree. Some (many?) distributions of Linux have and run from stable.
> 2. There are mechanisms in place for preventing actual merging of the faulty patches.
Those mechanisms failed.
> 3. Even if a patch is merged by mistake, it can be easily backed out or replaced with another patch, and the updates pushed anywhere relevant.
Arguably. But I think this is a weak argument.