“Especially because it’s become even more successful after he’s mellowed out?”
You state that as if its also “obvious”. How is this a fact? How is it obvious? Is it more successful because of his mellowing or irrespective of it? On its face, seems to me we cant nod our head in agreement to your sudden assertion any more than arc’s assertion that Linus’ initial style worked.
You seem to want arc to provide some sort of metric or proof to back up his assertion. Well, where is yours? Where’s your metric/data?