It is a worse problem when leaders refuse to change their opinion simply for the sake of being consistent with the past when assumably they were less knowledgeable.
And, of course, one has to consider the amount of times (%centage wise) this happens before passing judgment. I would suspect that this is rather low for Linus, and that the whole point (which seems to have been missed) is: that he doesn't sway easily, and that the few subjects where he has being swayed drastically show both his original good judgment on most things, along with the ability to be convinced of opinions better than his first (usually correct) opinions.