[oblio]

Also, even back in the day, X wasn't considered the best tech around, at least by some. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS was around.

However NeWS' licensing was proprietary and X won out.

[unstuckdev]

Gopher and HTTP had a similar situation. Gopher had a lot going for it, but the future licensing situation was unclear. HTTP was free, clear, and widespread by the time Gopher became GPL.