Linus' story is that early on in the history of Linux he was not direct enough in his criticism of a kernel dev's code to make it clear he wouldn't accept it in

Linus' story is that early on in the history of Linux he was not direct enough in his criticism of a kernel dev's code to make it clear he wouldn't accept it into the kernel. So the kernel dev kept working on the code in the hopes of it being accepted, and then when Linus finally made it clear it wouldn't be accepted the dev became-- according to reports Linus heard-- suicidal. Consequently Linus says he decided to go in the direction of communicating in the manner that he is now known for. (Which makes me wonder-- if he had a personal encounter early on with his sarcasm causing the same bad outcome, would he have decided as confidently to go in the other direction?) Regardless, I think jaromil who maintains Devuan is a great counterexample. He's quite nice and non-sarcastic, approachable to newcomers, and he seems to be able to herd cats just as well.