Is it time to open source SublimeText? | Hacker News Reader

Is it time to open source SublimeText?

ruky.me

42 pointsrukshn82 comments

"I feel that open sourcing SublimeText is the only way for SubmlineText to be relevant and compete against VSCode."

The SublimeText people make a living by developing and selling a honest product (and they're probably happy doing that).

There's nothing wrong with not competing with VSCode.

I assumed this was a blog post from the author of Sublime Text until I opened it.

This is the most entitled article I've read for a very long time.

It also asserts with no evidence that VSCode is popular because "it is open source" rather than the more obvious, "It has the backing of Microsoft".

There are thousands of less popular open source editors out there. And yet Sublime is one of the few pieces of software I've actually paid for (admittedly not since ST2).

Hang around on HN and you would see more and more entitled articles and comments. Entitled comments come up so regularly on so many topics.

> the more obvious, "It has the backing of Microsoft".

I'm a VS Code user despite that. I just find it to be far superior to everything else. It's what I hoped Atom would have been.

Did they edit the article or something? I don't think it sounds entitled at all. Sounds to me like the author is just innocently wondering if open sourcing it might help them compete and wants to see them succeed.

And there is a mention of "backing of Microsoft" being part of the advantage: "With the rapid pace of VSCode development with the backing of Microsoft, I don’t see any other way SublimeText can keep up unless they make the editor open-source."

Hey I don't want to pay for your thing. You should make it free and also give me the source code.

Maybe for the Thing™, but from where I stand it does seem like Sublime Text might be headed towards the Abandonware territory if they don't wake up

It had a presence at some point, now every company I visit I see a lot of VS Code and Sublime is nowhere to be found on people's screens. I switched too. I liked sublime text a little better but VSC is free and the Rust integration was very pain free. I have painful memories of having to configure build systems sometimes with Sublime (not with Rust - I didn't use Rust at the time).

And I waste 8 seconds every time I need to boot it up...

I recently tackled this with my side projects and created an open source contingency plan (https://www.candid.dev/open-source/). Basically, if a product goes without an update for six months, it will be released under the MPL-2.0. I am still working on finding some kind of foundation that can keep the code in escrow, for now it is just written online and in the LLC operating agreement.

I don't know. For a while, Sublime hit a slump, where 2 was no longer actively maintained, but 3 an unfinished beta that also didn't seem to receive much public updates, but that's been resolved years ago, and from all public indicators, Sublime is a healthy, steady business these days, with regular releases for both Text and Merge and new employees getting hired.

At some point, I was prompted to upgrade, with no indication that it would invalidate my license. Subsequently, there was no obvious path to downgrade. I'm not sure how many people are in my boat, but that left a sour taste. I like the product, but not enough to read the fine print in the license agreement and pay for it again.

Just uninstall and get old versions at https://www.sublimetext.com/2 or https://www.sublimetext.com/3

Since you are licensed you can just disable update check.

I used my licensed old ST for years like this, but recently purchased the new version to get wayland support.

I’m in the same boat. I’m using ST4 unlicensed until they downgrade me back to ST3 automatically.

I can't say I'm surprised, when I was typing it I kind of foresaw the hole in my point was that they could also just keep afloat with a very small market share forever

For anyone else curious, the most recent update on their site seems to be from May 21, 2021, so almost two years ago -- but unless I missed it, this does not seem to be mentioned by the article.

The author seems to simply be saying that VSCode is more popular because it's open source, and therefore Sublime should go open source. Not sure I quite follow.

Two years is definitely a long while, but Sublime has always had long breaks between releases.

> unless I missed it

You missed it[0]. Last update was 2 weeks ago, not 2 years ago. Sublime has had 12 updates in the past 12 months, with 3 updates in December alone.

0: https://www.sublimetext.com/dev

The latest stable version of ST4 was released in November 2022, and the latest dev build in March 2023. https://www.sublimetext.com/dev I assume that their target audience is inquisitive enough to find out about recent updates.

There are long periods without updates though.

They've been around since 2008. They released a huge major version change (4.0.0) just 2 years ago.

They've released 12 builds in the past year[0]. They released 3 builds in one month last December. Two weeks ago was their most recent patch. Here's the most recent patch from two weeks ago on this "Abandonware". They have Mac/Windows/Linux specific fixes as well as fixes to their API. They're not just fixing bugs either, new improvements have been added.

Sublime deserves all the money they make. The price is super reasonable. You may be confusing "Abandonware" with "Mature software that doesn't need any major fuck-up changes anymore because all of its users love the way it works and happily spend money on it"

BUILD 4148 14 Mar 2023

Various syntax highlighting improvements

Last tab in a group can now be selected with alt+9 (Windows/Linux) and cmd+9 (Mac)

Split View retains the original view's viewport position

The window title now indicates whether Sublime Text is running with administrator privileges

Improved indentation detection for files with many single space indents

Fixed first character beyond ASCII range not being decoded/encoded for short code pages

Find in Files no longer cancels ongoing search with a renamed buffer

Fixed regression where ./ wouldn't work in the "Where" field of find-in-files

Fixed find settings confusion when run immediately after find_under_expand

Fixed minimap viewport highlighting not working when color schemes specify a text background

Reopen Closed File now uses the window's file history by default rather than global history

Fixed annotations displaying incorrectly when "ui_scale" is set to something other than 1

Fixed issue where the command palette could consume key presses while not having input focus

Fixed syntax-based folding not working correctly with some indented code

Fixed backtracking bug where tokens were being dropped

Fixed some hangs caused by syntax backtracking

Fixed tabs of deleted files incorrectly showing as modified in some cases

Fixed word wrap wrapping early in some cases

API: Added Window.num_views_in_group

API: Fixed inconsistent focus after Window.open_file

Mac: Better support for running as root

Mac: Added workaround for Monterey bug causing scrolling to misbehave

Linux: Fixed incorrect mouse behavior at window edges

Linux, Mac: Attempt to find the license key for the user when using sudo

0: https://www.sublimetext.com/dev

> VSC is free and the Rust integration was very pain free

I switched from VSCode to Sublime Text. While Rust Analyzer has best support in VSC it works more than ok in Sublime Text.

I had no problem paying for Sublime Text (and Sublime Merge). My mbp has enough battery and RAM but there is no reason for VSC to be that hungry.

As a currently happy Sublime user, my issue is that there has been almost radio silence on the project. My license is up soon and I am seriously considering not renewing if there is not any movement on _any_ development soon.

There has been one news/update post in the past 1.5 years. The most recent was November 2022 and then May 2021 before that. I would appreciate any sort of update, and I would also appreciate being told if the project is going to be abandoned.

Their discord is very active https://discord.com/invite/D43Pecu

There was a blog post about ST4 in 11/2022[1] indicating Build 4142. My current version is Build 4143 so there's been at least one other one since.

Personally, if it keeps working (and boy does ST keep working), then who cares if it's not actively developed? I know at some point it becomes a problem, like with TextMate back in the day, but we're pretty far from that.

[1] https://www.sublimetext.com/blog/articles/2022/11

> My current version is Build 4143 so there's been at least one other one since.

According to [0], the latest dev build was released in March 2023. So...quite recently.

[0]: https://www.sublimetext.com/dev

> As a currently happy Sublime user, my issue is that there has been almost radio silence on the project. My license is up soon and I am seriously considering not renewing if there is not any movement on _any_ development soon.

So, you are a happy user but you also want active development. What are you looking for, precisely, that needs to be developed?

I've been a Sublime Text user since ST 1, and I've used it as my only editor for years. ST4 added nice things like automatic theme switching, but for everything else it's feature-complete for me. Is there something you're missing?

> When it comes to making money, the SublimeText developers can offer the core version of SublimeText for free, while they can sell a pro version with more advanced features targeted towards more advanced users and developers.

Sublime has been known for years for its generous trialware, where a countless number of users just click past the popup suggesting buying. Such users have already decided they want all the features of Sublime just for free and the devs have allowed for that without restriction. The suggested scenario would ironically make the available free version worse.

Plus there has already been a healthy plugin community for Sublime. I wouldn't doubt it might receive a boost from being open source but if we contrast with Atom editor, which recently officially EoL'd and was open source, it didn't make it a superior experience to Sublime ime, despite how much functionality the community was eager to replicate.

Which isn't to say I would be against them going open source, just that I don't feel the reasoning is persuasive in the article.

Sublime Text editor is my day-dreaming destination when I feel depressed of work. It makes me really happy that 2-3 people can actually build something, sell a piece of it in an non-disturbing way, and do this for a living.

It's also one of the best shareware models ( Is this even a word these days? ), that I've ever stumbled upon.

Keep up the good work, folks!

Lots of people have pointed out how entitled this article is. There's another problem with this article.

The author assumes that his plans for the future are in alignment with or superior to the vision of the authors / ip owners of Sublime.

There's plenty of room for great free and open source tools and great proprietary development tools. Always has been... Emacs, Eclipse and VS Code haven't killed off the paid IDEs. Sublime's niche has a long tradition of paid and free tools. What is good is that Sublime has found a way to survive, and hopefully prosper. That should be celebrated... and maybe the lesson is why they are able to survive in spite of great free competition. (this also applies to JetBrains, WingIDE and many other commercial development tools, all of which are great values for developers)

Honestly, I don't see competing with VS Code as much of a goal: it takes a world-beating development effort, and you will likely not have a self-sustaining organization in the end. For Microsoft, they get a way to distribute Copilot, Azure, Github and proprietary add-ons. For a smaller company, you may not have a way to create a sustainable team to maintain the product.

Aren't most of you 1337 h4x0r making 300K USD as developers in start ups?

99 USD should be in your couch cushions, Tesla cupholder, or the bottom of your messenger bag.

I know you're joking, but as a US dev I am very well compensated, and I don't even blink at giving JetBrains a hundred bucks a year for IntelliJ. Good tools make my life better.

I'm not a sublime user, but if I was, if it was critical to my workflow, I would absolutely pay for it.

As a tiny company, with a fantastic product, I'm sure Sublime has a lot of loyal customers who continue to pay for new versions.

Competing with VSCode is not really possible, or necessary.

I paid for it as a college student a decade ago. I literally did all my coursework in it, it felt like a no-brainer to throw some money at a company that made a great product that I relied on.

It really does baffle me how many software engineers making six figures and buying $7 lattes every day will balk at spending even a couple bucks on a useful app.

I think it's just a matter of habit: we're used to paying for physical goods, but over time we were accustomed to get digital stuff for free.

Sublime is an awesome piece of software written with so much effort put into performance. I don't see why the author should open source it. People who like open source editors only have many options. Open sourcing Sublime text would just mean the amount of paying users would drop to a much lower number, and the authors would be forced to write CRUD apps in some company. Once it goes open source there would be a new free open source distribution and all corporate money would drop I think.

On HN the sentiment for many things that everyone else can make enough money via donations/patreon and do some consulting or merchandising. However, very few HN developers would choose that over their well paying jobs writing closed source software.

Honestly I'd rather Sublime had taken over instead of VSCode. It's just really good software. Sublime to me is up there with OpenBSD and the Golang standard library in terms of well written, "just works" software.

> the Golang standard library

Mon Jan 2 15:04:05 MST 2006 would like a word with you.

How could it be if they don't have MS deep pockets to pay developers and integrate the IDE into their products?

If any Sublime Team member comes by just know that you guys have a solid software that many of us used when we left Notepad++ and still use.

Even though, currently, I use it more for note taking and text editing. I really love it. Well done guys!

I always find myself coming back to ST for "powerful text editor" needs. It works, it does what I need. I was able to use it for a long time before paying for it. Not sure why it needs to be explicitly compared to VSCode and treated with the same expectations.

Because VSCode can do everything Sublime can, and a lot more, for free.

I always switch back to Sublime for very large files. VSCode can't handle them.

That being said, I use VSCode 99% of the time.

It can't be MS-free. It's more than enough for me. Besides, ST is the best text/coding editor I've ever used, and I've been using quite a lot of these.

They're both editors. Does ST have features found nowhere else? Doubtful...

Afaik ST's main feature is lower latency than VSCode

Fair enough

I don't think this is a good idea.

Sublime Text is already a very good text editor. It could be even better, but I am not convinced than changing its distribution model would change anything at this stage.

The cost of the license is peanuts compared to the time I spend using it.

Of course there are many free and good alternatives, but Sublime is just a bit more polished and focused, it is near perfect for my use case.

> The cost of the license is peanuts compared to the time I spend using it.

And hopefully the money you make with it

I could probably use Notepad, VSCode or Vim and make exactly the same amount of money..

No, this is about the invaluable pleasure of using a slightly nicer tool.

I use (paid) Berkeley Graphics fonts for the same reason.

No. I'm happy paying for the software that I spend most of my time in. The claim in the article that Sublime is "overshadowed" by VSCode simply doesn't ring true to any regular Sublime user, especially if they can type faster than VSCode can render to screen, which is basically everyone.

[citation needed]

I dont understand this argument. Vscode is very fast after you opened it. Startup is slow but who cares? I haven’t restarted my vscode for a week now.

I use only Sublime for my work. But to claim that VSCode didn't overshadow it is incorrect.

Everyone uses VSCode, and while I hate it because of the bloat, slow startup, and slow plugins, given a blind test I don't think I would be able to tell which one is faster in typing...

> especially if they can type faster than VSCode can render to screen, which is basically everyone.

Maybe I'm blind, but I can't see any typing latency in any editor.

Just tried this and I can't jam keys fast enough to get any input lag in vscode. What are you referring to?

I saw the same thing (very happy long-time ST user) in VS Code _years ago_. Maybe the parent has that sort of perspective?

Sounds like someone living in their own bubble.

This article finally made me do today what I've been putting off for no good reason: buy Sublime Text licenses for all our devs that use it. We've been talking about switching to VS Code for ages, and indeed I tried switching myself several times, but always found myself back in Sublime Text for one reason or another. It really is a great editor. My thanks to the (small!) team that develops it!

Or -- hear me out -- support the small business trying to make a living selling a good product at a reasonable price rather than insisting it be open-sourced, stripped for parts by the big-tech machine and inevitably left for dead.

Gonna ruffle some feathers here, but I suspect devs who spend more of the time with their hands on the KB and less of the time with their hand on the mouse will always have a place in their toolbox for software like ST. When you are heavily invested in KB-based workflows, e.g. CLI, shortcuts etc, software that doesn't feel slow and shit is a pleasure to use. VSCode is very featured, but it doesn't even approach ST in the 'pleasure to use' category. So is it fair to say that they're for different users and then is it fair to say that ST needing to compete with VSCode isn't accurate?

> I had to do some text editing and was in need of a text editor that was better than Notepad, and with muscle memory

This embarrassing post could've been avoided if he'd use Vim.

Wondering if the OP hasn't heard of Notepad++ - if they are using Windows? It has a GPL license and does text editing rather well.

Sublime text is one of the best pieces of software ever written and is regularly updated. Stop being a cheapskate and just pay for it if it is valuable. Making it free and open source is a bizarre thing to ask.

Being a long-lasting supporter of open source software, I wholeheartedly agree with you. There are many commercial software masterpieces (Sublime Text, Bitwig, Houdini among others) that would never (or at least in the foreseeable future) achieve that level of perfection without commercial support of the developers, allowing them to focus on their product. While I'd like the ST to become open source (although I doubt it would improve the program significantly), it should keep its commercial license. I'll happily renew when my v3 license expires.

If you could merge the ecosystem and extensibility of vscode with the editing performance, color rendering etc of subl it would be the perfect editor.

What about CudaText? https://cudatext.github.io/

What about it?

Thanks for linking this. I love SublimeText but I also have to augment it with https://www.sweetscape.com/010editor/ sometimes. Always on the lookout for something that can do both.

010 editor is currently by far the best text editor I've used for >1GB files. Other than that I just use ST.

Hmm looks like it's inspired by Sublime.

First impression: intalling plugins is a bit pain in the a*. No online package manager, so gotta load the zip manually.

Never saw this, thanks! I immediately thought it was something for working with NVIDIA's CUDA but the note at the bottom of their page clears that up: 'Disclaimer: word "cuda" is taken from Serbian language, it means "miracles".'

I always find it frustrating having to wait for an update (of an already super slow release schedule) to get a simple bug/usability fix..

ST uses python, with the boom of AI stuff, i feel like they are missing out.. it should have been a heaven for that crowd.. Blender profits from it quite a lot these days!

That's unfortunate..

By that logic, it's well past time to open source Windows, Office and the Adobe Creative Suite.

I'm trying to read this charitably but that convenience of a small binary is perhaps the sort of USP you're paying for in a $99 text editor.

Sometimes we can't have the moon on a stick. And that's okay.

No. The market already has an open-source code editor. If it was great, who needs another? This is more of an indictment of Visual Studio Code being a bloated Electron mess and needing a better open-source project than that, than a request to make Sublime open-source.

Come on, just pay for good software.

No! Its authors deserve every penny.

And Sublime Merge is good, too.

"It's time to open source this software, because I can't afford $99 the author is asking for it"

The only reason I no longer pay for a license to Sublime Text is that it's not available on my OS. Them either supporting more OSes (a lot of work!) or making it open source would at least cause _me_ to buy a license again.

They don't even have to make it "open source", keeping a proprietary license such that it's just "source available" would be fine with me too.

Edit: Hilarious to get down voted for this comment.

What OS are you running, then?

Linux, MacOS and Windows are all supported. I don't know a lot of commercial software that is cross-platform beyond those three.

Some variant of BSD probably...

OpenBSD

> I don't know a lot of commercial software that is cross-platform beyond those three.

This discussion isn't about "a lot of commercial software", it's about Sublime Text. There world is not all Linux, MacOS and Windows.

I'm aware Sublime Text isn't available for OpenBSD (There's a FreeBSD package but last I checked it was broken)

I'm just letting the developers know, there's interest outside of those OSes.

Curious which OS are you using for development, since Sublime provides official versions[1] for macOS, Windows and Linux.

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

OpenBSD

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