* Linux is a computer operating system

Right. r/w/u = 1/0/0

* just like Microsoft's Windows or Apple's Mac

Wrong. Technical reason: It is a multi-user system more comparable to Unix, Solaris, or other network OSes. Economic reason: It's not commercial, nor owned by anyone. 1/1/0

* emerged from the shadows at the height of the technology boom

I'll give him that one. Although it was only "in the shadows" to the general public. 2/1/0

* and quickly became every sociologist's darling

Not hardly. I think many sociologiosts were a little busy thinking about the Middle East to give a fig about Linux. 2/2/0

* has been hailed as everything from the heir to communist parties of old to an inspiration for anti-globalisation protesters

? Not that I've ever seen. Although I just may not be reading the right conspiracy theories. 2/2/1

* Linux is free.

True. 3/2/1

* Created by a Finnish geek called Linus Torvalds

True, though I get the impression "geek" is used in the perjorative here. 4/2/1

* nurtured by a ragtag army of programmers connected by the internet

Once upon a time? Maybe. But since this was just published last week, it should account for IBM. I don't consider them "ragtag" so ... 4/3/1

* has never received a penny of venture capital

Is this laughable or simply pathetic? I'm not sure. 4/4/1

* nor an inch of advertising

"Peace, Love and Linux" Next ... 4/5/1

* and yet boasts several million users around the world

A grudging admission, but accurate. As long as "several" is understood to mean "tens-of" millions. 5/5/1

* The people who make the software do so for the sheer joy of it, with no financial reward.

All of them? No. 5/6/1

* These non-capitalists

Bzzt! Did anyone tell RedHat that they're not capitalists?

* have scared the willies out of Microsoft, which sees its Windows monopoly threatened by a competitor that can undercut its prices to the max

Close enough. 6/6/1

* People liked Linux for its underdog and underground status

And for the fact that it works, and that they can fix what doesn't, and that they can add things it didn't do before, and that ... well, you get the point. 6/7/1

* seemed to embody both the anarchic spirit of the internet and blow a raspberry to globalisation by sidelining capitalism in favour of a new cooperative movement

That wasn't the primary goal, but seems close enough. Let's give it to him. 7/7/1

* Microsoft itself clumsily added to the Linux myth when its executives implied Linux was un-American.

True. 8/7/1

* The whiff of McCarthyism only encouraged free-thinking netheads.

No, it just brought it to more people's attention. "Netheads" already knew about this. 8/8/1

* That so many people should donate so much time to making something they received no money for

Already covered this one above. 8/9/1 (Yes, I'm piling on when he repeats the same mis/un-truths.)

* that they should dedicate their work to 'the community' when they could have done the same thing in high-flying jobs at software companies

No, they couldn't. The software companies with high-flying jobs to offer were more interested in making money than in making good software. 8/10/1

* seemed to some a miraculous return to altruism

Not at all. Or not mostly. Many just saw it as a return to a method that actually worked, before Microsoft hit on the business model of selling software. 8/11/1

* That Torvalds should resist the temptation to cash in on his creation with an initial public offering (IPO)

On what? He didn't own anything but the name. And someone tried that IPO. Remember Linux1? Worked well, didn't it? 8/12/1

* Linux could have raised billions on the public markets during the boom

RedHat did just that. In fact at one point they had the assets (on paper) to buy Compaq. 8/13/1

* Torvalds kept his day job and laboured on Linux at night out of love.

Actually, his day job was to help develop a chip that implemented Linux (and other OSes) better than existing chips. Using the software to sell hardware. 8/14/1

* anti-capitalist protesters ... preached the downfall of consumer brands ... techno frenzy on the world's stock markets ... Linux seemed to capture the spirit of the turn of the century.

Wait, was that the spirit of anti-capitalism, or the spirit of frenzied stock markets? 8/14/2

* Technologists liked Linux.

True. 9/14/2

* They installed it surreptitiously in corporate networks when the grown-ups weren't looking.

Wow. So no one who brought in hardware against corporate policy is a grown-up? Tell that to the accountants who brought in PCs to run Lotus 1-2-3, ushering the PC revolution. 9/15/2

* By 2000, analysts reckoned perhaps half of the world's biggest companies were running Linux somewhere in their organisations, introduced by rogue engineers.

Can't even admit to an overwhelming adoption of the new technology without again raising the "rogue engineer" boogeyman. 9/16/2

* All of these installations that could otherwise have been using Microsoft Windows.

Nope. Numerous reports show Linux installations have taken more away from Unix than from Windows. 9/17/2

* succeeded where they failed - stealing some market share from Microsoft

Same as above. 9/18/2

* making the free software model a viable way of creating new software.

It always was. The industry just forgot for a while. Give this one an "undetermined." 9/18/3

* For all their 'underground' status, Linux people are actually snobs

Some are. Just as some Microsoft users are. This is a non-statement. 9/18/4

* Linux is not a new political philosophy that is going to destroy capitalism.

You're the one who said it was supposed to be. Strawman. 9/19/4

* Most people who eagerly coopt the Linux pattern of development to their own revolutionary fervour have no idea what a computer operating system even is.

Most? Got any figures? 9/20/4

* Essentially, an operating system is to a computer what a teacher is to a class of primary schoolchildren. The children (software applications) all want to get as much as they can out of the toybox (the computer hardware). Left to their own devices, they'll tear each other apart until they get their way. The teacher (operating system) keeps them in check and determines who will get their hands on what in an orderly fashion.

Actually, Windows only provides an abstraction layer for the hardware. It does some process controll, but the concept of re-nicing doesn't exist. So this condescending description of what an OS does is misleading at best. 9/21/4

* The real problem with Linux is that it is quite, quite unusable.

Didn't you say several paragraphs up that over half of corporations have it in use? 9/22/4

* Unless you have a higher degree in computer science, forget it.

I don't have a higher degree in anything. I use it quite easily. 9/23/4

* Do you know whether you should run Yellow Dog or WINE on an Intel processor?

Well, you could run both as one is an OS distribution and one is an application that runs on top of it. Or did you mean this as a trick question, since Yellow Dog Linux is for PowerPC? So the answer is that on Intel you can run WINE on any distibution, and on PPC you can run WINE on top of Yellow Dog. Oh, and besides which, installation is a totally separate matter to using it. 9/24/4

* And the reason it is so impossible to use

Already dealt with this. 9/25/4

* is that the people who write Linux don't have to care about whether ordinary Joes can use it. They write only for each other, trying to gain propellerhead kudos with their new 'updates to the kernel' or twiddles to PostgreSQL. If you can't keep up, you're not worthy to use Linux.

Tell that to the folks doing [link|http://www.k12ltsp.org/|K12LTSP] or [link|http://gnome.org/|GNOME] or [link|http://kde.org/|KDE]. 9/26/4

* Really, for all their insistence on the openness of Linux

Some do, some don't. There's no monolithic "they." 9/27/4

* for all their revelling in their underground status

Same as above. 9/28/4

* these Linux people are actually a bunch of snobs

Again. 9/29/4

* They don't want you to understand the secret language that makes them feel special.

And again. 9/30/4

* They want to make it as hard as they can to join their gang.

And again. 9/31/4 (How many times do you have to repeat the lie for it to become Truth?)

* Read some of the noticeboards on the internet, with their stinging opprobrium for those unfortunates who haven't quite grasped why, when they'd FTPd the RedHat directory from the ACM server to another local server and installed it through HTTP, the FTP installs didn't work. Stupid!

Then go read the boards set up to help people with this same stuff. 9/32/4

* Far from bringing openness and cooperation to the world of IT, Linux enthusiasts want to keep it as closed as possible

So why do they release the source code? 9/33/4

* while collecting lavish praise from half-baked anti-capitalists

But I thought "they" were snobs who only wanted to make fun of people? 9/34/4

* so they can carry on feeling self-important.

Monolithic "they" again. 9/35/4

* After all, if these geeks could write real software

The number one HTTP server on the planet (just to pick an easy one) isn't "real software"? 9/36/4

* they'd be working for a proper company.

Wouldn't you have to define "proper" first? Wait, before I score this one, let's check the definition ...

* Like Microsoft.

I can't accept "convicted monopolist, awaiting judicial remedy" as a reasonable definition of "proper." 9/37/4


So that makes 51 statements of fact and/or opinion. Nine are objectively true, four are arguable or unknown, and 37 are demonstrably false or unreasonable by any definition.