Would you like anchovies with your source code? ZDNet columnist Evan Leibovitch compares the incredible diversity available through Linux — and its potential benefits — to a favorite food . . .

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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