Everything I am reading indicates that:
A. Linus doesn't do this very often. Most of the time, he is perfectly well mannered. But we don't hear about that. We only hear about these incidents.
B. Most of his work conversations occur on the public record. So anyone can get hold of it when he gets riled. When a CEO gets riled, that is much more likely to occur privately and get covered up.
C. He created Linux for free. It is his passion. It shouldn't be surprising that he feels strongly about it when it is threatened.
D. A corporation is trying to fuck his project over, no doubt for personal financial gain. In my book, that is a vastly bigger offense than a little swearing. Etiquette that focuses on polite words and excuses more serious offenses is not a good thing. If corporate culture were really the better answer here, then Linus' tirade would have never happened because Intel would not be trying to crap all over Linux to begin with.
So I find it incomprehensible that anyone would suggest that the solution here is for Linus to operate more like BigCo. He is a guardian of a public good. He is defending it from corporate greed. The lack of moral responsibility of a large corporation is the very reason he is cussing. Expecting him to be more like them amounts to asking him to sell us all out for money and the sake of saving face in public rather than taking a stand on our behalf.
The real focus of this discussion should not be the language Linus used. It should be "What the hell, Intel?" But I am not seeing that focus.
And I can tell you why I am not seeing it: Because no one is surprised or shocked that a corporation would do something so terrible. In fact, we expect it. So we don't bother to try to hold corporations to a moral standard.
Instead, we expect people like Linus to meet a moral standard because he consistently does. Then we give him hell when that isn't an easy thing to do in this shitty world.
The real solution to this problem is to be pissed at Intel, not lecturing Linus that he needs to behave better, just like corporations do. A corporation is the root cause of this issue.
That isn't a straw man. It is the crux of the problem here.