Comment by sbuttgereit | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sbuttgereit | Hacker News Reader

I love the editor, it's still better than its competitors.

But in terms of management I think they're making two mistakes:

1) I bet almost everyone that uses Sublime Text for production work are using the "Beta" version (3) and not the release version (2). However, version 3 is suppose to be a paid upgrade from version 2. How long can you leave money on the table like this and still have a business, especially when the "beta" status probably doesn't have much meaning with your customer base? Maybe these guys have day jobs and this is just funny money anyway...

2) By remaining in beta so long and now that many people are using it... when they do pull the release trigger on version 3, that will be a very sudden expense for people that maybe have grown to depend on it without having paid for the upgrade. While everyone on version 3 should know that the day will come when that's a new license to pay for, if it rolls out as a standard update and doesn't obviously leave room to stay on the last beta version while people digest the upgrade fee... you might see a lot of people upgrade to the alternative editors instead. (OK, OK... that's a potential management mistake, not a concrete one as yet...)

1) Yes, well over 90% of Package Control users are running Sublime Text 3. We haven't brought it out of beta yet because there were still a number of rough edges and improvements we wanted to make before then. Jon mentioned in the last beta blog post (https://www.sublimetext.com/blog/articles/sublime-text-3-bui...) that this dev cycle is leading up to the 3.0 launch. And no, we don't have day jobs. Sublime Text is my day job. :-)

2) In terms of the expense, the only people who will be required to pay an upgrade fee are users who purchased a license before the Sublime Text 3 beta was announced. So effectively users who have been using ST2 (or ST3) for more than four years will be paying. Everyone who has purchased since the ST3 beta announcement have an ST3 license already (http://www.sublimetext.com/blog/articles/upgrades).

I paid for a license already, and I'm not sure where I fall in the timeline of being eligible for a free upgrade, or not. That said, I'm happy to pay for a license for the upgrade.

As a longtime customer, I wish there was more communication about the state of things, and plans for features, things like that.

Basically, more communication, and less radio silence.

"Linux: Added repositories for apt, yum and pacman" - Thanks for including Arch Linux (pacman).

Thanks for your response and hard work. I want you guys to make more money to have incentive to make Sublime Text better/faster since that helps me to be better/faster in my work! I will be in the paid upgrade class. I'm happy to do it, and the price is trivial compared to the return on that investment.

I'll leave you with this... My wife worked in Hollywood for a long time and we knew some wanna-be script writers... some of them wouldn't ever try to get their scripts sold or read because... for years on end... the scripts "weren't ready yet"... those guys usually just ended up doing other work and never selling a script since they couldn't live without cash flow. Don't be those guys :-)

I bought mine pre beta 3, and you know what, I'll be happy to send more money your way when 3 is released considering this is my main code punching tool. Thank you.

> We haven't brought it out of beta yet because there were still a number of rough edges and improvements we wanted to make before then.

Your standards of quality are admirable! ST3 is the most immaculate text editor I've ever used (never used ST2). If ST3 is beta, then in comparison Atom or even Vim are still in alpha.

We haven't brought it out of beta yet because there were still a number of rough edges and improvements we wanted to make before then.

Let me compare this to how I decide if something should be released: Is it stable (ie: it doesnt crash frequently)? Did I add some features so I can tell users its better than the last version? If you answered yes to those questions, then fix any major bugs and ship the thing as stable.

You would have been on 3.0 stable a long time ago.

I also would package each of these fairly minor releases as 3.x.. so this release would probably be 3.25 or something.

Why? You mark it as stable so new users (who aren't aware of your process) know they can use this (and you can close the sale). You want people to feel like the project is active, and they're getting a good deal for the license.. which feels like a better deal to you? - I bought ST2 and will get ST3 - I bought ST 3.0, and received over 30 releases from 3.0 to 3.30.

Yes, well over 90% of Package Control users are running Sublime Text 3.

This is a warning sign. You were so conservative with marking it stable, that the users have made the decision for you. The beta is now your product, and if you break it, that will be your reputation. You no longer have a real beta.

I would agree, but I would also say that they should err on the side of caution. Don't see all of these posts and just call the next release 3.0. Do an absolute thorough round of testing. Be sure that it is stable. Then bring it out of "beta".

As bad as breaking the beta would be, releasing a product after such a long beta period that isn't completely stable would be worse.

All that said, Sublime is easily the most stable piece of software I use on a daily basis. I prefer JetBrains IDEs for daily coding, but still do plenty of work in ST3 and have customized the heck out of it to fit my needs almost perfectly. I'd be very much surprised if it wasn't ready to exit beta today

ST is quite likely the most cautious product I've ever seen. Most products have a development cycle like this:

[beta][stable release][active development][extended support][eol]

ST seems to call the entire period through active development "beta".. and then when they've finished developing the entire thing and hit what would normally be the extended support period (bug fixes only), they call it stable.

It's certainly costing them money. And reducing the value of licenses (since its "stable" for a shorter period of time)

If I were them, I would wait a couple of weeks (so that they get the entire benefit from their announcement today of this new build), and then re-release their software as stable -- even if no changes were made to it during that period.

This thing has been in beta since 2013. It's been tested enough. It's ready.

(And to ST: if you want free advice on your release process, you're more than welcome to email me. Or at least talk/consult with someone with product management experience.. your software is great, but this release process needs to be fixed.)

ST3 is not beta anymore. You just call it that but as you said over 90% of user uses ST3 on daily basis. I highly doubt that all of those 90% are beta testers. I would even risk saying that all of those 90% users are using ST3 in production and are relying on its stability. It's Gmail Beta story all over again http://gizmodo.com/5309225/gmail-finally-comes-out-of-beta

According to the sales faq[1], a license is valid for version 3. A future upgrade to version 4 will require a payment.

[1] https://www.sublimetext.com/sales_faq

Good call! That's changed then since I last looked at the license (probably about four years ago or so when I purchased version 2 and version 3 was going to be the paid upgrade).

So they dodged my point two. I hope they don't amplify point 1 with that move.

[Update] Actually, this is not fully correct in regard to my point. I re-read your link and this is the key bits.

"Until such time, upgrading is not required, as Sublime Text 3 will accept Sublime Text 2 license keys during the beta period. [...] For customers who purchased in the 90 days prior to the announcement of Sublime Text 3 [Jan 2013], we are reducing the cost of upgrading from $15 down to $11. Customers who purchased Sublime Text 2 before this time period are still subject to a $30 upgrade fee when 3.0 is released."

So version 2 subscribers are not automatically grandfathered into version 3; there is a class of version 2 users that are, but not all. Apparently there is a time at which they considered licensing to be version 3. http://www.sublimetext.com/blog/articles/upgrades.

So for example, I bought a version 2 license in 2012, have been using version 3 since 2013... an automatic update to a full release version would force the update issue.

Using web.archive.org, it looks like licenses have counted as version 3 licenses since April of 2013[1]. So I guess licenses purchased before that are for version <=2 like you said. At least it isn't as bad as you'd thought.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20130518184355/http://www.sublim...

I used to publish my own shareware. So maybe I see these things differently:

Today's customers are paying for continued development, for future releases. If a product is dead, there's near zero chance I'd pay for it, or use it (willingly).

If this dev is happy, I'm happy. When I was in the game, I was thrilled to have steady income, enough to stay solo and continue to do what I loved.

(I bought a personal license and make each of my employers buy me a work license. I love SublimeText and am happy to pay.)

its competitors

fixed

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