A nice example of the idea expressed here is this quote from a recent interview with Linus:

What do you think is going to be the next big controversy ... that everyone is going to fight about ... ?

(...) There is always the bigger thing, usually something that has been simmering for a while, and it just simmers long enough that when something happens it just releases the floodgates and there is a big flame-fest (...)
I'm also not very polite, I actually like arguing with people, and there's a lot of people who like arguing in general in the kernel community. Some people don't like doing anything but arguing (...)