History is really important here. When Smalltalk systems first spun out of Xerox PARC, they carried hefty licensing fees. The whole free software / open-source

History is really important here. When Smalltalk systems first spun out of Xerox PARC, they carried hefty licensing fees. The whole free software / open-source movement wasn't as ingrained in developer culture back then. Worth remembering that SUN was marketing Java everywhere for free and that made a world of difference.