I've been using julia for a little more than two years now. I've been subscribed to all the mailing lists and regularly read the github issues. Not all of them, but a fair share. I've never, ever seen any behavior by any of the core devs that one could even remotely describe as toxic, rude or anything like that. The community is actually really helpful and supportive.

I have seen this point about a toxic dev been made before in some blog post. Back then I followed the story up because it seemed so at odds with my experience with the core devs. It took a bit of googling and following links, but in the end, in my mind, there was simply nothing to the whole story. The supposedly rude behavior was not at all rude, imho.

I don't really know where these allegations come from, but I find this kind of "I've heard second hand that there is a toxic dev" inappropriate. If someone has a problem with someone, make it explicit, post the email that you dislike, so that others can judge themselves. But these vague accusations are not helpful, and at least from my point of view entirely at odds with how I have perceived the behavior of the core devs over the last two years.

I should say that I'm not part of the MIT crowd. I've never met or talked with any of the core devs and don't know them beyond reading their emails on mailing lists and sporadic interactions on github.