So Linus gets this wrong: swearing isn't the problem people claim it is. The most corrosive personalities in groups don't swear, and indeed, are usually nice and polite to your face.
lore.kernel.org/lkml/CA+55aFy+…
lore.kernel.org/lkml/CA+55aFy+…
It's like how Richard Stallman is on every measure a worse person than Linus Torvalds -- even though he doesn't swear. I mean, yes, Linus should stop the swearing/insults, but even with them he's still a vastly better person than Stallman.
Linus is a better person than Lennart Poettering (systemd). But whereas it's easy to point out Linus's character flaw, it's hard to ping down what precisely is wrong with Poettering.
Yes, it's unfortunate Linus calls people a "fucking idiot", but at the same time, when he does so he takes the time to explain to them exactly what's wrong and how to fix it. Some of his most informative/interesting posts are him chewing somebody out.
I have never learned anything technical from Stallman. I've learned a lot about the more subtle technical details on a wide variety of topics from Linus. If we demand he stop explaining to people why they are wrong, we'll also stop this great source of information.
I'm not saying we shouldn't criticize Linus for bad behavior, I'm just saying that of the scale of bad behavior among the people we work with, his is far from the worst. He gets criticized for it mostly because it's obvious, we can clearly point it out.
