>It is not a positive characteristic. I wish he wasn't as abrasive but that is his personality.
You can't just say this. I mean, where do you put the limit? Imagine if we let all kinds of aggressive and violent behavior slip on the account of "eccentric personality". I enjoy reading Linus's rants as much as the next guy, but it makes you wonder how the other person feels. And "grow a thick skin" isn't good advice, because if something doesn't bother you doesn't mean it can't bother someone else. For example, I've long ago grown out of taking stuff on the Internet personally. But I remember how it was, and I would often be very close to just giving up on doing whatever I was being hated for. (In fact, I can bet that happened at least once.)
There is some norm of decency you have to follow when talking to someone you don't know. It's how you show that you can accept others' opinion and argumentation, and sometimes accept you weren't right. I have a hard time imagining Linus Torvalds admitting that he was wrong about something he ranted about. (If you know of any examples, I'd love to see them.) And that's not a good thing. Either he's never made a mistake, or he doesn't want to admit it. I'm willing to bet Linus has god complex issues, and instead of recognizing it as something that needs to be toned down, he just embraced it and amplified it. Some people will still say that it's cool, sure, but I, for one, would like to see him be a tad more humble. Even when you've achieved as much as he did, you can very much be wrong about stuff. That's, in fact, by definition of the human being :)
You can't just say this. I mean, where do you put the limit? Imagine if we let all kinds of aggressive and violent behavior slip on the account of "eccentric personality". I enjoy reading Linus's rants as much as the next guy, but it makes you wonder how the other person feels. And "grow a thick skin" isn't good advice, because if something doesn't bother you doesn't mean it can't bother someone else. For example, I've long ago grown out of taking stuff on the Internet personally. But I remember how it was, and I would often be very close to just giving up on doing whatever I was being hated for. (In fact, I can bet that happened at least once.)
There is some norm of decency you have to follow when talking to someone you don't know. It's how you show that you can accept others' opinion and argumentation, and sometimes accept you weren't right. I have a hard time imagining Linus Torvalds admitting that he was wrong about something he ranted about. (If you know of any examples, I'd love to see them.) And that's not a good thing. Either he's never made a mistake, or he doesn't want to admit it. I'm willing to bet Linus has god complex issues, and instead of recognizing it as something that needs to be toned down, he just embraced it and amplified it. Some people will still say that it's cool, sure, but I, for one, would like to see him be a tad more humble. Even when you've achieved as much as he did, you can very much be wrong about stuff. That's, in fact, by definition of the human being :)