Has that ever happened? My impression was that he only ever takes a rough tone with high profile coders and is nice and polite to "poor coders". Also, he never insults them personally, but says that their code/argument is bad and that they are smart enough to know that already. Hence, they should stop making excuses and fix it already.
This is especially inexcusable coming from Linus because it's not like he needs to resort to these tactics to be heard or make an impression, he's one of the most respected software devs in existence (and for good reasons). You could remove all the abuse from his posts and you'd lose exactly nothing IMO.
But this discussion is hackneyed, I know many people love Linus' style and think it's perfectly acceptable and even a good thing, I'm just definitely not one of them.
It’s sad that there are people who think calling garbage code garbage is inappropriate. What goes in their mind? Don’t they smell or call a smell a smell?