As another commenter mentioned - it's somewhat of a selection bias; Linus doesn't go around spouting hate-speech, but when he has jack of someone pestering him

As another commenter mentioned - it's somewhat of a selection bias; Linus doesn't go around spouting hate-speech, but when he has jack of someone pestering him with an idea/patch/whatever that he has (many times, repeatedly) turned down, then he'll stop being polite about it. Could he ignore it? Perhaps. I prefer that he'll let you know, in no uncertain terms, to go away. These rants aren't actually that frequent, but you'd think that they were constant from the way you hear about them. It's not really about having firm opinions without being abusive. It's about being called abusive for having firm opinions.