Hi Richard,
To answer your specific question about the trial version, it is not intended to be used indefinitely.
It is allowed to be used for 45-days and its intention is for customers evaluating our commercial services or needing to do migrations.
We give them an opportunity to try the product first to make sure it meets their needs.
https://www.instantiations.com/products/license-agreement.html
We're a commercial business, not an open-source community, however we do invest heavily with our company resources for the betterment of the Smalltalk community.
We primarily do this monetarily via platinum sponsorships to ESUG, FAST and subsidizing the Camp Smaltalks that we put organize or sponsor other camp Smalltalks.
- We feel strongly in investing in those that invest back.
Its a good point of clarification you bring up, and I hope this helps you and others
Kind Regards,
- Seth