I think Torvalds position in this issue was correct. But I disagree with the description of him being polite. In one of his comments his quote was like, "You are a moron." That's not polite. Granted, he has a well-established style when he goes into rant mode on a certain issue. And Linux is his baby more than anybody else's. And he almost always takes the right side of any issue. So we should all cut him some slack. But he was not polite.
Again, it's Linux. And the issue was over what/whether/how he should accept commits into torvalds/linux on GitHub. Anybody's free to commit anywhere and fork Linux or make custom builds, distros, etc. But if there's one place he has the absolute right to be a tyrant is over torvalds/linux. The fact that he also designed and bootstrapped git for the whole purpose of doing version control The Right Way, based on his needs for Linux development, is just icing on the cake of that argument. But he was not polite.
Again, it's Linux. And the issue was over what/whether/how he should accept commits into torvalds/linux on GitHub. Anybody's free to commit anywhere and fork Linux or make custom builds, distros, etc. But if there's one place he has the absolute right to be a tyrant is over torvalds/linux. The fact that he also designed and bootstrapped git for the whole purpose of doing version control The Right Way, based on his needs for Linux development, is just icing on the cake of that argument. But he was not polite.