I know this is an old thread. But, situation has remained the same. Linus is an accomplished hacker, but this kind of language should be clearly unacceptable. Just because someone is accomplished and controls keys to the biggest open source project, does not mean people should discount such behavior calling it the necessary evil or even making excuses for it and justifying it. If we hear someone speak like that to another person, we surely will think that the person is terrible. Then why does Linus get away with it?