"Avoid it where you can" is the wrong attitude. You do need to be cognizant of the issues around the license, though, and, for a commercial entity in particular, avoid it where it will infect something you don't want infected.

I love Linux and am fine with using it and its GPL'd code on my servers, but if I needed to extend an OS as a product (eg if I wanted to create the next OS X), I'd look at BSD long before Linux.