I am finding the comments here about how Linus needs to behave properly, like they do at Google, amusing given how often Google and other for profit companies are portrayed as evil empires and FOSS is portrayed as the only moral antidote to the evils of capitalism.
Let Linus swear a little and suddenly those roles are entirely reversed? Really?
Isn't that kind of a non sequitur? The idea that "Google is evil" (not that I agree with it) and the idea that "It's possible to construct a culture where people can air grievances and criticize others without inducing flame wars [like at Google]" are arguments that have nothing to do with each other. There is no role reversal, even if we unreservedly accept both premises.
There is no separating out corporate culture from the fact that it is a corporation. FOSS is not a for profit corporation. Expecting it to function like one is not reasonable. Trying to impose corporate culture as the standard for FOSS is not only not reasonable, it is counterproductive.
If you want corporate software, cool. But if you want FOSS to exist at all, there has to be a fundamental acceptance of the fact that it will have a different culture and a different process.
I will add that his cussing spree here is in response to a for profit corporation trying to shit all over his project. But, hey, must be totes okay for them to shit on it since they didn't use any cuss words or raise their voice.
There is your so called corporate etiquette right there.
Positive team environment and corporate culture are not inextricably linked. They may overlap depending on the corporation in question, but they are not one in the same. This should be obvious since you can have a positive team environment on teams where no corporation is involved (e.g., hobby projects). Clearly the suggestion that FOSS should have a positive team environment cannot be the same as the suggestion that FOSS should have a corporate culture.
Think about how your logic would look flipped around. If leads at Google were encouraged to slap people down when they disagree with their suggestions, then you'd have to suddenly argue that Linus should change his tune because otherwise he'd be fostering a corporate culture, and FOSS must have a different culture than that.
Clearly that, too, would be a non sequitur.
As for the rest of what you said, I think you know no one is suggesting anything of the sort. There's no reason to straw man here.
A. Linus doesn't do this very often. Most of the time, he is perfectly well mannered. But we don't hear about that. We only hear about these incidents.
B. Most of his work conversations occur on the public record. So anyone can get hold of it when he gets riled. When a CEO gets riled, that is much more likely to occur privately and get covered up.
C. He created Linux for free. It is his passion. It shouldn't be surprising that he feels strongly about it when it is threatened.
D. A corporation is trying to fuck his project over, no doubt for personal financial gain. In my book, that is a vastly bigger offense than a little swearing. Etiquette that focuses on polite words and excuses more serious offenses is not a good thing. If corporate culture were really the better answer here, then Linus' tirade would have never happened because Intel would not be trying to crap all over Linux to begin with.
So I find it incomprehensible that anyone would suggest that the solution here is for Linus to operate more like BigCo. He is a guardian of a public good. He is defending it from corporate greed. The lack of moral responsibility of a large corporation is the very reason he is cussing. Expecting him to be more like them amounts to asking him to sell us all out for money and the sake of saving face in public rather than taking a stand on our behalf.
The real focus of this discussion should not be the language Linus used. It should be "What the hell, Intel?" But I am not seeing that focus.
And I can tell you why I am not seeing it: Because no one is surprised or shocked that a corporation would do something so terrible. In fact, we expect it. So we don't bother to try to hold corporations to a moral standard.
Instead, we expect people like Linus to meet a moral standard because he consistently does. Then we give him hell when that isn't an easy thing to do in this shitty world.
The real solution to this problem is to be pissed at Intel, not lecturing Linus that he needs to behave better, just like corporations do. A corporation is the root cause of this issue.
That isn't a straw man. It is the crux of the problem here.
I don't think Linus is wrong for how he interacts with people, but I do worry that people are so easily distracted by his display that the ensuing conversation about his behavior detracts from his message. Nearly every statement he makes like this devolves into musings on human psychology.
People tend to talk about that which is both trivial and emotional and will derail a discussion in that direction on the slightest opening. This is not peculiar to how Linus Torvalds gets treated. It is the default norm for human behavior. Talking about things with actual consequences is often decried as political and deemed not appropriate for civil, intellectual conversation.
Let Linus swear a little and suddenly those roles are entirely reversed? Really?