Ask HN: Before Open Source took over the server, what was the discourse like?

My understanding of the early Internet is that there was fierce competition among commercial, closed-source server and database software, and that the dominance of Linux, Apache, MySQL (and now PostgreSQL) etc were far from obvious or guaranteed. I think we’re in a similar moment with LLMs, and I’d love to read some stories, or see some examples of discourse on mailing lists, forums, or whatever on this subject from that earlier period. I think it would be helpful for grounding present-day discussions. What can you share from this era?