WSJ - Mossberg disses Linux

[Max Pyziur]

Greetings,

In order to try and  get a broader audience for a Linux I've engaged in a 
small effort to try and get Walt Mossberg, the technology and gadget 
reviewer for the Wall Street Journal, to try and review Linux-running 
machines. His replies to me were that Linux was just for "techies" (I have 
his emails archived somewhere).

Mossberg apparently has considerable traction, one of the WSJ's marquis 
writers, and his reviews can make or break products in the WSJ-reading 
community. Producers fear what affect his criticism will have on their 
bottomo line.

Today, he has a review of a Linux-based machine, "A $99 Desktop Comes
With Software, Backup And Too Many Catches" (p.B1) and he says wonderful 
thing like,

" ...Second, a lot of this Linux software is rough, below the 
polished level of Windows or Mac programs. In my tests, various programs 
crashed or froze frequently. While the Banshee program is supposed to work 
with iPods, it failed to work properly with both of the iPods I tested. 
..."

Exactly, not my experience. I've been a Linux desktop and server user, 
trying to keep my nickels from landing in either Bill Gates' or Steve 
Jobs' pockets, since the late 90s. Certainly, in the late 90s 
applications-based stuff had its rough edges, and these days an 
alpha-based application (so self-described) may have have unpredictable 
results, but on too many points Linux can go head-to-head, and be 
head-and-shoulders above Jobs- and Gates-related offerings.

I encourage Fedora, and other distro, users to take a crack at the 
WSJ-reading establishment and their chief spear-carrier. Email (publicly 
available) is mossberg at wsj.com.

Max Pyziur
pyz at brama.com