Linus is an asshole

The Linux Linus, not the Charlie Brown one.

This is what I hate about some kinds of engineers and developers. They turn arguments about programming personal, and they think that just because they think they know better than everyone else gives them license to behave like an asshole. It doesn't. Civility and respect for one's peers doesn't evaporate because you can do math well.

People like to talk about how democratic Linux and Open Source is, but in fact it's really more like a monarchy or dictatorship with an arguably benevolent dictator. Ultimately, a very few number of people have control about which patches get into the Linux kernel and which ones don't. At best that is a representative democracy with no checks and balances. But I don't know that Linus actually ever faces elections over his control of the kernel.