What is “Vendor Neutral”?

What does it mean to be Vendor Neutral?

To be Vendor Neutral, or Vendor Neutrality, seems like it should mean no specific preference to any certain vendor or no bias towards any certain particular vendors, or not favoring one vendor over another. Indeed, vendor neutral means a “product or specification that is not proprietary and controlled by one company. Open source software was conceived to avoid allegiance to a single vendor”[14]. PC Mag encyclopedia goes on to make note, “However, an ‘open system’ is not entirely vendor neutral as the foundation platform may be controlled by one company”.