Before Linux made the GNU development model something that was actually being used, when people thought of openness in computing they usually thought of "100% I

Before Linux made the GNU development model something that was actually being used, when people thought of openness in computing they usually thought of "100% IBM compatible", running a Microsoft OS. The contrast between the "open" world of PC clones and the isolated islands of hardware makers that supplied their own operating system was as alive and visible back then as the contrast between FOSS and MS is now. Seen this way, the slow transformation from lock-in to charm-in that we observe today is more a return to the roots than a dissolution of identity for Microsoft.