Vitalik proposed a theory that the toxicity is a valid and perhaps even necessary defense mechanism.
I don't pretend to know whether Vitalik's theory is true, but it certainly seems plausible. And defending linux from bad actors is a herculean task. If Torvald's toxicity helped him in that endeavor, his apology would be a negative development.
Interestingly, the Rust community has had incredible success being explicitly anti-toxic. It's a wonderful community that I enjoy. Rust is also now reaching a level importance that it will be a target to be coopted as described by Vitalik, as prominent members of the Rust community have expressed concern over [0].
It seems to me the threat model of Rust is a magnitude safer than that of Bitcoin under assumption that Bitcoin was to become a global store of wealth. Toxicity acts as a shield to protect against social attacks from the big players which may try to, in some way, capture control of the network or influence its direction. And there are very good incentives to try and do that. It's also why it's important for the protocol to ossify over time and become even more conservative. Rust, as well as the vast majority of open source communities, doesn't really need that these levels of toxicity to survive in the long run because the attack vectors aren't on the same level (although still very important to deflect attacks because there are other incentives in play). At least it seems to me to be this way, I'll gladly listen to a counter-argument.
I don't pretend to know whether Vitalik's theory is true, but it certainly seems plausible. And defending linux from bad actors is a herculean task. If Torvald's toxicity helped him in that endeavor, his apology would be a negative development.
Interestingly, the Rust community has had incredible success being explicitly anti-toxic. It's a wonderful community that I enjoy. Rust is also now reaching a level importance that it will be a target to be coopted as described by Vitalik, as prominent members of the Rust community have expressed concern over [0].
[0] https://twitter.com/steveklabnik/status/1437441118745071617