Having a controversial reputation in leader is not always a bad thing, look at Theo De Raadt or Linus Totvald. It’s seem to have already attracted contributors, but let’s see how all of this goes in the next’s months.

There are different kinds of "controversial" and degrees of things. While you're correct that both Torvalds and de Raadt have a well-earned reputation for not always being the easiest person to get along with, most of their controversial behaviour centres around flaming people over technical matters, or sometimes organisational matters directly related to the project. Basically: it's not what they're saying, it's how they're saying it.

I've never seen either Torvalds or de Raadt go off on these mega-weird political rants completely unprompted, or inject that sort of thing in the project's README. Never mind going off on rants that smell an awful lot like Nazi apologetics. This is not just a matter of "how they're saying it", there are some real issues with what they're saying as well.

But you know, it's open source. He doesn't need mine or anyone else's permission. More power to him.

But it's really not the same as Torvalds or de Raadt. And it's also not so strange people want to steer clear of it.