I tend to think of Linus as being similar to Steve Jobs - brilliant but arrogant srseholes whose products I enjoy using, but I would never work with them without some very serious compensation for putting up with the shit. Which is where this becomes a problem for Linus. Jobs could hey away with it, because he could pay people enough that they accepted the bad treatment. Linus, not so much.
It's clear that that the kernel dev guys and Kay have a history. I wonder if Kay would have been more open to accepting change requests to systemd without Linus's bad behaviour. It bears thinking about...
No you're not getting it. Linus is not like this often. And he's not like this to people who are innocent bystanders. Linus will only chew you up if you're an engineer he knows personally that should know better.
What you have to understand is that these people are not on Linus' payroll, so he has little direct power over them. Screaming at people is one of only two forms of power that Linux can exert, the other being withholding merging of code, which is even more extreme. And these incidents actually come up rather seldom when you think about how much code is submitted to the Linux kernel, which I think is a testament to how well Linus' management is working.
Because as with many things, it's a matter of perspective. For Kay, this code works as intended. So if you want him to change it, don't open a bug, discuss it on the mailing list. This does not seem like a completely unreasonable request on Kay's part. Note also that Kay does not get personal in this response. Compare and contrast with Linus then calling Kay a "fking primadonna". Now, whether you agree with Kay or not, do you really think that Linus's approach is going to get him what he wants?
Again, I have the greatest respect for Linus's achievements, but I personally feel that he uses the power those achievements have bought him to be a bully, and that gets no respect from me.
It's clear that that the kernel dev guys and Kay have a history. I wonder if Kay would have been more open to accepting change requests to systemd without Linus's bad behaviour. It bears thinking about...