While I agree with his focus on users, he has passed up a valuable coaching opportunity and probably antagonized a whole bunch of developers. He turned a potential coaching opportunity into a pissing match. Ridiculing volunteers on a open source project is inappropriate, irrespective of whether the opinion of that person was right or wrong.
If you look at the history, the comments at the beginning were much less abrasive. It's only after the discussion continued for a long time that he started being more aggressive in his comments.
But I think it's wise, in all debates, to maintain that civility. At the end of the day, which comments are getting the attention?
I think he's right, I think it's important to defend what he thinks is right, and I understand how it can be frustrating, but we all just have to have the fortitude keep the flames in check.
The nature of the Father of Linux being, in essence, an enraged (often insightful) crusader is just a point of pride for a lot of people who know about him and like Linux.
As the originator of the OS and still working at a low level, it's nice to see him (A) care about the user experience all these year later and (B) cut through other people's bullshit the way a lot of us wish we could.
