&quot;Toxic&quot; is a particular bugbear of mine.  I often see references to toxic individuals, or toxic cultures, which seem to use the word as a way of avoiding having to explain what is disagreeable about these individuals or cultures.  GP is arguing that toxic individuals make toxic cultures, which is almost tautological and doesn&#x27;t really explain very much about why this is a bad thing.  If the Linux kernel is &quot;toxic&quot; then it would appear that toxicity is no barrier to success in terms of adoption, or benefit to humanity in terms of the quantity of free software distributed to the world.  This doesn&#x27;t appear to make sense, possibly because &quot;toxic&quot; just isn&#x27;t a great metaphor for whatever GP wants to describe.