I've been using Linux of various flavours for around 6 years now and you could not be more WRONG.. It is generally well known that competition is a good thing, while monopoly is a bad thing. This doesn't just apply to business. 2 competing projects such as Gnome/KDE produces better, more stable code a helluva lot quicker than one large company; simply because the developers are constantly trying to out-innovate each other.
Also each distro generally has a default desktop, but will allow you to install another if you prefer it. Surely this is a good thing?? It allows you to have some level of standardisation but still allows the user freedom, which is after all what FLOSS is all about.
There could be nothing worse than Linux becoming entirely standardised, with everyone using the exact same apps as everyone else, that way lies stagnation.
The best thing about Linux is that it offers the user ultimate choice. I've recently switched from Mandrake to Gentoo because Mdk seems to be getting dumbed down ever further as each release goes by. While Gentoo is an absolute bitch to get up and running compared to Mdk/SUSE/RedHat etc, you can make it do whatever you want, with whatever software you want. No Restrictions!!
And the idea that Linux isn't suited to business use because it isn't standardised is just plain ludicrous. NASA, BNFL and many other large companies use Linux because it *isn't* standardised and they can make it do exactly what they want. (As well as the obvious Stability/Security issues *shudders at the thought of Nuclear PowerStations running Windoze*)
While the ability to build a distro from the ground up (Gentoo) isn't everybodies idea of a good thing, as I keep having to remind my WinPup brother, it's a matter of choice and if you want something that just works out of the box with minimal config then Mdk/RedHat/SUSE/Sun JDS will sort you fine. Personally I like to tinker.
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I've been using Linux of various flavours for around 6 years now and you could not be more WRONG.. It is generally well known that competition is a good thing, while monopoly is a bad thing. This doesn't just apply to business. 2 competing projects such as Gnome/KDE produces better, more stable code a helluva lot quicker than one large company; simply because the developers are constantly trying to out-innovate each other.
Also each distro generally has a default desktop, but will allow you to install another if you prefer it. Surely this is a good thing?? It allows you to have some level of standardisation but still allows the user freedom, which is after all what FLOSS is all about.
There could be nothing worse than Linux becoming entirely standardised, with everyone using the exact same apps as everyone else, that way lies stagnation.
The best thing about Linux is that it offers the user ultimate choice. I've recently switched from Mandrake to Gentoo because Mdk seems to be getting dumbed down ever further as each release goes by. While Gentoo is an absolute bitch to get up and running compared to Mdk/SUSE/RedHat etc, you can make it do whatever you want, with whatever software you want. No Restrictions!!
And the idea that Linux isn't suited to business use because it isn't standardised is just plain ludicrous. NASA, BNFL and many other large companies use Linux because it *isn't* standardised and they can make it do exactly what they want. (As well as the obvious Stability/Security issues *shudders at the thought of Nuclear PowerStations running Windoze*)
While the ability to build a distro from the ground up (Gentoo) isn't everybodies idea of a good thing, as I keep having to remind my WinPup brother, it's a matter of choice and if you want something that just works out of the box with minimal config then Mdk/RedHat/SUSE/Sun JDS will sort you fine. Personally I like to tinker.