[sillywalk]

I believe the allegory (I was a kid at the time ), is that, just as Iran-Contra involved alliances of convenience between enemies and spending a lot of money, X.org (or the MIT X11 group) & all the Unix Vendors & DEC VMS, were trying to find a way to sort of standardize a Unix GUI, while also trying to siphon their competitors customers and lock them into their own proprietary systems.

Maybe FAAANG, they want to eat each others users, but also not have the government interfere, especially in avoiding taxes.

Here's American Dad giving a brief, basically factual < 2min, musical overview of Iran-Contra.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFV1uT-ihDo