Open source, as we understand it today, barely even existed when Commodore collapsed. If you did find someone who was familiar with the concept, they were likely to view it as a radical new idea. Those who understood the history of computers would likely see it as a quaint reflection of computing's roots in academic environments.

For most people free software meant freeware, software that was both free of cost and free to distribute but rarely included the source code. When source code was shared, it was usually for the benefit of other developers (e.g. examples and libraries). Those who did may have put it into the public domain, requested money for its use, or left it in legal limbo by saying nothing at all.

Yet the idea of distributing the source code as a means of collaborative development or to extend the life of software, few outside of the academic world would have accepted such notions. Such notions had been purged from the commercial world at least 20 years prior.

And that's even before one considers the personalities of the people running Commodore.