I wish I had not met so many brilliant people that have the linus attitude. I would say maybe linus influenced them, but they are both on the windows and linux sides.
These people I continue to work with because they have taught me so much. They have been hard on me when I have been wrong and they have mentored me. I certainly would not be where I am if I did not grow thick skin.
However, I would definitely draw the line if I was ever harassed or was in a toxic community. I never got into IRC or Python. Maybe thats the key?
Linux, on the other hand, I don't classify as "toxic", overall, do you? I do occasionally read the LKML ( I don't subscribe ) and I have certainly seem some edgy behavior there, and times I think its overboard. Opinionated? Check. Intimidating? Check. But toxic?
It's really hard to speculate how many people have avoided working with linux because of this. There is certainly other communities such as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, etc. They seem to not have anywhere near the traction linux has, which would lean to indicate that what we are talking about did not hinder the success of linux, or prevent people from contributing to it at large.