An Open Stack, from Top to Bottom

What would it mean for all of us to use an open stack, from top to bottom? Once we loose our paranoid grasp on straws made up of proprietary systems, what is left for us to hold? Would we float free for a moment, suddenly disoriented, then newly stable as we found our sure footing? Would we stand tall, knowing that the systems that we employed were not snares or traps? And then: as long as these questions are unanswered for a single one of us, how can any of us rest?