Well in the interests of fairness one Canonical employee decided to send the reporter a netbook with a copy of Karmic (the next Ubuntu release) on it.

Here is the reporters response.

I think its pretty far off the mark. Comments such as

“But, even after some help from a Canonical advisor who came and installed a few add-ons such as Flash, I struggled to work out how I would organise photos, music and video with this system.”

are a little off the mark. Linux (not just Ubuntu) has a plethora of applications that can manage photos (oh how I love f-spot), music and videos so I’m not sure where the confusion comes from. I attach my USB camera or phone and I get offered the chance to import to f-spot, I open a video file and equally its easy to play it. As for flash, go to a flash based site and you get presented with an option to install not just flash from Adobe but other free alternatives.

Not wanting to get personal, as the reporter Rory Cellan-Jones may not be up-to-date with his market analysis but comments like:

“Risking another pasting from its supporters, I’ll predict that Ubuntu will remain a very niche product – but it’s Google’s Android which could bring open-source to the mass consumer market.”

show a little ignorance. Open source on the cell phone is a little different from the desktop. Android on anything but a cell phone platform is like trying to make a nun get drunk with beer whilst smoking crack (recent small bit of ammo).

The phone war will be fought with Nokia’s Maemo (but not the current generation) and Google, the desktop (which he was testing) will be fought with Google (Chrome OS), Windows 7 and some Linux flavour.

I look forward to an unbiased, educated analysis of the technical market by the main-stream media but I don’t hold my breath.