Engerek01: I am a scientist and this subject is not open to debate. It's a universally accepted doctrine among scientists that when a verdict is agreed upon by a subject, all the rest cases following the same principles can be declared as such. I believe in law, this is called " precedent applies".
I think you'd be surprised at my credentials, peer-reviewed papers and their impact factor. I'm sorry but this is just to set the scene, seeing as your appeal to authority and expertise arguments seem to demand so and you wouldn't listen to mere argumentation from "non-experts" or "non-scientists" clearly. Which in itself is a bit sad. You shouldn't look at people's credentials first, merely their argumentation.
To read what you just wrote about the scientific method, hurts me. Almost physically. You have so misconstrued science, that it is perverted beyond any recognition. In fact, you might as well have been describing Abrahamic religion and dogma, instead of science and rational skepticism. Let me deconstruct what you have done and described.
Your main theory (as opposed to a hypothesis) is that based on some (non-disclosed) data, everyone who agrees or idolises Linus Torvalds, a mentally distressed/ill/symptomatic person of renown and influence, is also "toxic" and exhibits traits similar to his. Your basis for this theory (it's moved beyond hypothesis in your case for reasons unknown) is that everyone who "follows the same path, practices the same behaviour in the same regard" can be categorised as "toxic", seeing as Linus described himself so. Therefore, as a psychiatrist diagnosed Linus as mentally ill, anyone who acts similarly to Linus or ascribes to, must also be. Your evidence for this is of course an argument, a "theory" (which you actually treat as a hard fact"): Linus is toxic and mentally ill, therefore his followers must be toxic and mentally ill. What is your empirical data to corroborate this? None that I'm aware. Not even the anecdotal "oh, in my experience I've encountered many toxic Linux users", which would actually count as data (though not very scientific).
The thing is, you need to have started with a hypothesis that you attempted to strengthen with some evidence (usually empirical data, but could also be qualitative) - or the other way around, found data from which you drew a hypothesis. Then you need to have seriously and critically considered your meagre hypothesis with all kinds of counter-argumentation and criticism. If the hypothesis could not be disproven, it would have become a very exalted coveted thing - a theory. This theory, given enough time and effort of trying to disprove it, would eventually become fact (see tectonic plates, evolution etc.) with mutually exclusive evidence pointing in the same direction and no credible theory or fact to contradict it. For quite some time, maybe decades even. So you see, science is the tool with which you attempt to poke holes at your own imagined superlative ironclad hypotheses (which they are not, of course). You are first a total skeptic and no fun at parties, before you believe in anything.
To connect two random dots in such a haphazard way, call it "scientific", "law", "not open to debate", "fact" and "logic", is a complete perversion of the actual scientific method.
Let me demolish your entire hypothesis (because that's what it truly is, not a theory, and certainly not fact) - the Linux community cannot be considered toxic based on Linus' mental issues because there are contradicting data points out there where people who agree with Linus are also non-toxic. Done, simple as that. I don't need to prove empirically in a peer reviewed paper that such people exist - we both know this to be the case (even if they might not be numerous).
Furthermore, there are many deficiencies in your hypothesis! If Linus calls himself "toxic", can his definition be applied to the community? What is Linus' definition of toxic? Is he an authority on psychology that he can classify such things? No, he is not. In fact, since you are adamant of his mental problems (without credible proof that I could find) existing, how can we trust Linus' self-assertion about himself being toxic? After all, he is mentally ill in some form or another, and certainly not an expert or an authority on the matter. In addition, what is the % at which you can deem the Linux community as toxic (whatever definition you want to utilise for that term)? As this is not defined, surely you cannot assert "the Linux community must be toxic as they idolise Linus". Is it simply a majority? More than 50%? Where is your evidence for this? Where is the data for this? I could go on, but suffice to say there are so many gaping holes in your hypothesis, it just doesn't hold water.
I agree though, you can call the Linux community toxic if you like - nobody would bat an eye, and many would agree. *However* you cannot call it a scientifically documented fact. That's absurd!
Based on your incorrect interpretation of the scientific method, I can only conclude you do not know what the hell you are on about. The only thing you got right was that in Law there seems to be some kind of conception of "precedence" as a source of Law. But this is not at all applicable here, we are not in a court room and such legal notions do not hold in science or in the physical world.
Engerek01: I am a Linux user. Have been using Linux one way or another since 1996 and I love it. But the first step of solving a problem is acknowledging that there's one. And you can't do that by ignoring universal facts, analysis, and hundreds of thousands of data.
What universal facts? What analysis? What "hundreds of thousands" of data?
I too am a Linux user for some years now, exclusively, and a Linux gamer. I also consider Linus to have admirable qualities, even if he is totally unprofessional, rude, obnoxious and probably a total c#nt at parties. The mere fact that the Linux Kernel developers/project had no code of conduct in effect, just a very dubious code of conflict, speaks to how awful that work environment was. Yet, many people see his value and good qualities, and are certainly not "toxic".
