This is not to say that Linus’ behavior is a good model for “how engineers should generally behave”. It just isn’t, and anyone behaving this way in a company should almost certainly be fired. I think he’d probably agree, to boot. But I could be wrong about that.

P.S. I hope I don’t come across with disagreeing with you about any of what you think tech “should” be. I totally agree with you.

Instead they lost face and now I and many other privacy concerned users can never trust Firefox ever again.

I will try to be more straightforward.

You've stated that Linus has a unique role, and that he has to be this way or he'll lose the kernel/ essentially be worse at his job.

You've provided no examples or evidence (and I asked).

In your opinion, Linus must be this way, it is "just required" by his unique position. We have this totally unknowable position that you, for no apparent reason, assume is best suited to people who insult others publicly. And because this position is unique we can't compare him to others, by nature of the position.

You have essentially placed Linus in a position where you could basically justify anything. "Oh, well, it's a very unique role - you just have to be xyz for this sort of work".

The thing is, Linus's position may be unique, but it has a lot in common with lots of positions we have a good handle on. There are lots of open source leaders out there, lots of people who manage codebases, write code, etc. Maybe not exactly all of those things in exactly the same way, but we have plenty of similar positions.

I do not imagine a community so vehemently defending members of those positions who act like Linus. By your own admission this is a bad model for others in the same exact industry with similar roles - you even say they should be fired for acting the way he does.

So I guess my question is; what unique aspect of Linus's role makes him so different from everyone else with incredibly similar roles? What evidence is there that, against everything we know about positions like the one he fills, acting the way he does is the right way for his role?

Does he owe you anything? Are you co-workers? Are you in his employ? It´s FOSS. If you don´t like it, walk away. The Linux kernel is his creation, his baby, and he runs the show. You don´t like his behavior? You don´t like his attitude? Fork the code, make your own mailinglist, get a bunch of people to submit patches, and knock yourself out.

I get that he is a "public figure in tech" and all that, but he owes you nothing - I failed to read the memo where he declared to act as a figurehead for proper behavior, or where he agreed to be an example or anything like that.

I work at one of those "major tech companies", and I can assure you that people call things garbage with regularly.