I would take it as a point of pride to be on the receiving end of one of Linus' rants. If I have his attention and he is even looking at something I wrote, it lets me know I made it :)
Linus gives these rants (largely) not to people who make mistakes, or who aren't smart, but people who are thoughtless - people who demonstrate that they don't really care, or just are there to drive-by fix Their Thing without any care about the kernel as a whole or how it will affect other people. That's what makes him Mad more than anything else, and that's definitely not the kind of contributor I'd want to be
I feel the same way, I have immense respect for Linus and can appreciate that he may flame me today and congratulate me tomorrow. It's not personal, it's about the work.