Really? To be honest, Linus also comes across as an egomaniac. Sometimes, he says what must be said. Mostly, he's just extremely abusive. The problem with BDFL positions is it removes the sort of checks and bounds that people need, to stop them growing into assholes.

The advantage is, for better or worse, they tend to have the kind of vision and consistency that allows a project to thrive.

I think it'd be nice if they had a HR department they had to answer to, or something like that.