On Mon, Aug 31, 2015 at 10:51 PM, Sean P. DeNigris
<sean at clipperadams.com> wrote:
> Chris Cunnington-4 wrote
>> I imagine other people had different impressions.
>
> Great summary!
>
> No matter how many Smalltalk conferences I attend, I am still struck by the
> spirit of cooperation and giving. All the apparent boundaries disappear -
> geographical, dialectical. Even the vendors and large commercial users
> sponsor open source events and projects because they seem to feel, as I do,
> that we are all in this together, and that whatever makes the community
> stronger, helps us all. And, as always, the social event was magical to an
> extent totally out of proportion to the community size - we're talking a
> serious live jazz band here! Thanks, Instantiations :) And, btw, I'm giving
> them a shout out especially because they sponsored the event in an extremely
> low key and cool way. It was mentioned in the agenda, but there were no
> giant corporate banners, mascots, etc. They were just there, part of our
> community, enjoying a great evening together.

Really nice to hear. There is always the chance that open source
reduces the closed source market resulting in an antagonistic
response, but there is an equal chance that "a rising tide lifts all
boats."  Many open source users would never have paid the commercial
cost and so be lost to the greater Smalltalk community, but later
their need might grow so the commercial cost is a small component and
worthwhile changing over.

cheers -ben