Actually this was written by Eric Raymond in "The Cathedral and the Bazaar". Raymond dubbed it "Linus's Law" which may be the source of the confusion.

Depends on how rudeness is defined as well. Based soley on people's feelings or above and beyond objective truth. Saying that Bob hasn't proven good at network programming and is prone to spaghetti code may be absolutely true yet he would likely take offense to it.

> It is directly counterproductive.

Linux is by far the most successful floss project in the history of mankind. God knows there are plenty of floss OS projects out there, most of which have far nicer leaders but a small fraction of the success. Either you're overplaying the effect on productivity or the relevance of being nice.