You can easily tell it's fake. Linus would never censor "fuck".

Linus have stated multiple times that he does not break user space, thus this quiet clearly cannot be real.

No it's not real, even the follow up has the date of Sat, Aug 15th, 2025.

Saturday is the 16th.

There is a lot of other issues people have pointed out but right out of the gate that one is clear sign of it being fake.

Is this real?

I mean, it's a joke in any case, but you mean is it a joke on the linux-kernel mailing list or someone making a joke elsewhere?

goes to check

https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/?q=torvalds

I don't know the purported source of the original text, but the "follow-up" is supposed to be on the 15th to the linux-kernel mailing list. I don't believe that that is an actual email from Torvalds. The most-recent email Linus has sent to the linux-kernel mailing list that shows up here is on the 13th, "Re: [PATCH] cleanup: Fix unused guard error function with DEFINE_CLASS_IS_COND_GUARD".

EDIT: Also, looking at the list archives, while he does appear to use an indented "Linus" as his signature file, unlike the "follow-up" image, it does not have a leading hyphen.

EDIT2: Also, looks like Torvalds is in the "surround a word with underscores" school of emphasis, rather than "surround a word with asterisks", a la the "follow-up email".

No but it sounds like something that needs to be made real.

Nah, eggs don't simmer down until they crack. I'm thinking a name like Sun-il would be cute. Might dictate North Korea later.