> Everywhere you go, you can find these user- and tinkerer-hostile decisions. Linux isn't much better than Windows for the semi-casual tinkerer either - at least on Windows you don't get told to just fork the project and implement it yourself.

The obvious difference being that in Windows you can't even do that or (easily) apply a patch. Isn't this very ability to patch (or create a fork of) the kernel the opposite of being tinkerer-hostile?