Why Linux is Not For You

[Bill Sconce]

Ah.  All THAT makes sense, Ben.  You're a far better writer than Preston Whels.

-Bill

P.S.  Although Whels appears to be grinding an axe, it is not easy to
discern what it is.  Writing from the teetering viewpoint of "I love this
stuff but I'm bashing it" makes difficult going for both writer and reader.
Whels could be a FUD shill for Microsoft.  It's conceivable, though, and
simpler, that he doesn't know how to write.

It _is_ easy to discern that Whels's mental processes are broken:
"...what I am saying is that clearly the user suspects that the only
merit which Linux users find in their OS is that it is, on some
level, better than Microsoft."

One cannot read stuff like this and stay sane.  "Clearly the user
suspects"?  Is it clear to the user?  Clear to all users?  Clear to us?
Clear to Whels?  Is Whels's proclamation of clarity is to deflect
OUR suspicions?  How certain can he be, after all, of what another
person suspects?

Especially suspicions as subtle as the unparseable predicate which follows,
"the only merit which Linux users find in their OS"...   The _only_ merit?
All Linux users?  The OS is the only question?  Is better on some level
like "better"?

And there deeper questions, about rhetoric:  Whels gives no hint that
freedom might matter, or that there is such a thing.  His noisy thinking
is sufficiently distracting that a reader might not notice the omission.

          -------------------

I treasure a tattered copy of Less Than Words Can Say, by Richard Mitchell.
Mitchell's target is the tangled prose of the bureaucrat and the
"educationist".  From time to time enjoy I getting it down from the
treasured-books shelf and renewing the companionship of a man who would
not countenance fools.