1.) I am not American. I am also not talking about Torwalds, because as far as I know Linus did not explicitly demanded to be spoken to "politely" (afaik).

2.) Talking politely and talking directly are orthogonal categories. You can be impolite while not direct and also polite while being direct.

3.) An environment in which people just speak their minds and is ok with people being impolite when those feel like it is characterized by everyone speaking is mind or being impolite, not just your hero. Meaning, you will not put emphasis on "be polite" when someone you dont like asks for something.

3.) I am pointing out the difference between how people who are not Torwalds demand that you talk to mailing list and what they defend as "good way to communicate" by people they admire. Because actual openly speaking culture is symmetric.