ZDNet: Why Linux is like pizza – Would you like anchovies with your open source code?

“Not many people anywhere, let alone in the open source world,
have heard of the Mettle distribution of Linux. You won’t find it
in ZDNet’s list of downloadable distributions, or even the huge
list maintained by Linux Weekly News. Indeed, it has not generated
a sentence’s worth of public mention until now.”

“Why? Because it’s the distribution used internally by only one
organization, my company, Starnix, as the foundation of its various
servers, firewalls, and special-purpose systems. Mettle, based
loosely on Red Hat 6.2 but with significant modifications, serves
an important function for Starnix, but the nature of its many
customizations are likely of little use to folks on the
outside.”

“That’s part of the beauty of open source in general and Linux’s
approach specifically. When you have the source, you can tailor
your computer’s operating environment to do just about anything you
want. This level of customization is unthinkable and unattainable
in the closed-source world.”

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