Controversial: he's just opposing conventional wisdom
Irrelevant or off-topic: Vista and Facebook are very relevant to this community
Baiting others: maybe he's guilty of this, but I think it's more the jarring cognitive dissonance of him opposing the accepted wisdom. A minority opinion isn't necessarily baiting.
Disrupt normal discussion: other people post his stuff.
Let's face it, he writes well, he argues his points well, and he calls out people he thinks are wrong. pg does the exact same thing, but no one disagrees with him since we're all in his world here.
Besides, how much of a troll is it to say something is good?
To paraphrase mixmax, I would fight anyone, verbally, fists, or pistols at dawn claiming that neither Apple fanboyism nor Vista-bashing have spread throughout the tech publications.
You say how the article is flamebaiting, yet the last line of your comment was extremely flammable. To answer your question, if it was honest: I am a hacker and I use Vista daily. I am sure I'm not alone.
Sorry if it came across as flammable, it's just not something that you hear about - startups working on vista. And all the startup photos you see are full of macs.
He makes good points, it is true, but what everyone on this thread is reacting to is how he makes them. When he uses words like 'bullshit' and 'fanboy' it feels like he's going out of his way to insult me the reader. Even when I read something I agree with him on.
After the instinctive reaction subsides I'm still left with the sense that some of his wording is calculated to arouse knee-jerk comment/traffic. That intention is at the heart of the troll mentality. Which is a pity, because he really doesn't need to do this.
Irrelevant or off-topic: Vista and Facebook are very relevant to this community
Baiting others: maybe he's guilty of this, but I think it's more the jarring cognitive dissonance of him opposing the accepted wisdom. A minority opinion isn't necessarily baiting.
Disrupt normal discussion: other people post his stuff.
Let's face it, he writes well, he argues his points well, and he calls out people he thinks are wrong. pg does the exact same thing, but no one disagrees with him since we're all in his world here.
Besides, how much of a troll is it to say something is good?