Linus is the leader of the kernel project. As a leader, it’s his job to get the maintainers to agree. It’s not Rust’s job to make the C devs stop bullying them.
If Linus thinks Rust is a good direction, he should show it by actually standing up to Ted and developers like him and making them behave.
If he doesn’t think it’s a good direction, he should say that too, so the remaining Rust devs can stop wasting time on the project.
When someone in a niche part of the project steps down like this, that’s a problem with the top-level leadership. Linus’ record on leadership is… mixed. Trending in a good direction the last few years, but this makes me wonder. He can still save this, but he has to want to.
I don’t see how it statistically benefits the company. Whether I sell you the right thing, or the wrong thing, I still sold you something. So why not try to make it the right thing so I come back?