People can be ruthless without being abusive. Linus had effectively ultimate power over the kernel for quite some time, so he could have said things like:
"I disagree with this patch and I'm not going to merge it. It does these things wrong, and this line of reasoning makes no sense. Change these things and explain the reasoning behind this and I'll look at it again."
Most of his rants that I've read could have been summarized by that without including any personal attacks.
"I disagree with this patch and I'm not going to merge it. It does these things wrong, and this line of reasoning makes no sense. Change these things and explain the reasoning behind this and I'll look at it again."
Most of his rants that I've read could have been summarized by that without including any personal attacks.