Maybe linus' fix should have been added as separate commit to a branch instead of putting the fix in the merge commit itself? Then the entire branch could be taken and rebased, or at least the range cherry-picked.
[1]: https://git-scm.com/docs/gitglossary#Documentation/gitglossa...
[2]: https://www.mail-archive.com/git@vger.kernel.org/msg73938.ht...