He's talking about the status of the code in question in his Linux tree, the one everyone in the world pulls from, so in that context he does in fact have the power to make his opinions reality ...
According to gerg's interpretation, you're saying that Torvalds' theory wins against practice, which contradicts Torvalds' statement.
Every month on the month, Less Wrong has a thread where we post Deep Wisdom from the Masters. I saw that nobody did this yet for December for some reason, so I figured I could do it myself.
* Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
* "Do not quote yourself." --Tiiba
* Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB. That's like shooting fish in a barrel. :)
* No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.