[beagle3]

My observation is that most of the people who get projects done, in the sense that they can manage a project with many contributors over a long period of time with successful outcomes, are considered somewhere between militant and obnoxious by others. The project leaders who are all-around considered nice, like GvR and (so far) Andrew Kelly (not an exhaustive list!) are the exception, not the rule.

I do want to point that millitant/obnoxious/ahole is a very subjective judgement. Personally, I've read many of (what's considered) Linus' worst responses, and I did not find them a problem - he is not gentle, and he occasionally uses expletives, but he is factual, and drives the point through in places gentler people waste ten times as much effort, by themselves (and everyone else) to get the same result - and the result IS good.

I, for one, much prefer to be told "this is sh*t, you need to redo this" (assuming, of course, that's a good summary) than going around and around in endless deliberations about specific details.