I am not convinced of this. Being rude and insulting someone’s intelligence is rarely a good trait. Linus got away with it due to the unique circumstances: leader of an incredibly popular open source project and a gatekeeper to a lot of access to it.

My argument against how he handles things has always been that while it may seem effective, we do not know how much more effective he would be if he did not curse people out for being dumb fucks.

And it doesn’t seem like this is a requirement for the job: lots of other project leaders treat others with courtesy and respect and it doesn’t seem to cause issues.

The reality is that it is easy to wish more people were verbally abusive to others when it isn’t directed at you. But soon as you are on the receiving end of it, especially as a volunteer, there is a greater than not chance that you will be less likely to want to continue contributing.