[Cuis-dev] Politics of Smalltalk

Philip Bernhart philip.bernhart at posteo.de
Sat Jun 13 11:46:12 PDT 2020


Hi folks,

today I had a quiet annoying "debate" with someone I know
on the internet. XKCD for reference for the feeling of it:
https://xkcd.com/386.

So I always wondered what the political statements and movements
were in Smalltalk or even Cuis Smalltalk. Squeak, Pharo and Cuis
did chose the very political MIT License as their License of choice.

Smalltalk was financed partially from the ARPA, so actually quiet
political, right? When you consider that you can't escape making
in some way political relevant decisions, then does that mean
automatically that the Smalltalk community "thinks" it's good that
their "open source" code is used within weapon systems. Maybe even
in the context of Kapital to mess up finance systems or indirectly
by using within Lam Research for producing circuits which could be
used in war drones, etc.

Most of us I would think are spending their time toying around with
Smalltalk, not considering every aspect of how we indirectly affect
other people around the globe with our "naive" mind of just liking
what we are doing.


So what do you think, should we spend more time on that side?
Philip


PS: I got some popcorn here and I'm resting in a comfy chair.
PPS: The current Yerba Mate infusion also adds to it.


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