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Sounds like you really don't get the value of open source.

> If you had created an editor with a new way of doing things, or pushed past existing concepts I wouldn't have thought twice about its value, but all the feature checklist is pretty much "Make this TextMate and Sublime in one" without any real game-changing plans being mentioned.

That's the entire point; he/she wants to add features to Sublime but can't do so because it's closed source. He/she has to get to parity with Sublime before starting to add stuff, no?

I do see your point that parity much be reached first, and do personally appreciate the open source model for a number of reasons.

Perhaps my viewpoint stems from the description of the project. The entire opening section talks about how Sublime Text has become slower and less communicative about releases. There's nothing mentioning surpassing the app, missing functionality, or items the developer wants to change. Simply that it's not moving fast enough for the developer of Lime to appreciate, so another must be built.

If there had been a specific statement saying "I want to implement X and Sublime doesn't" or "I want to have an editor do Z and none of the others do" then yes, I would see value in a project that starts off by imitating others. As it stands though, the project describes itself like a recreation of what's already out there without mentioning any intent to build on it.

This strikes me as the typical developer time-sink "I'll build this because I can". Sure it can be fun and educational and maybe help out a handful of people...but the real question that should be asked is "what sets my project apart from the rest". In this case, there's no sign of it aside from using GO and making it open source.

> I personally just don't see the value in bringing another text editor into the world

This isn't really a valid POV. There are many reasons to introduce solutions to problems with existing solutions. Is there any compelling reason not to open-source those solutions? Why does it matter whether there are competitors?

I don't see how it is a crowded market. Apparently Sublime Text is good enough to make a living as a paid-for, closed source piece of software, in spite of the existence of tons of high quality open source editors like emacs and vim. That alone suggests that commoditising it as an open source product would indeed add value.

And if the sublime text author had followed your argument, Sublime Text would not have existed. "Textmate already exists, and so do excellent open source editors. Why bother cloning textmate on windows?"

I for one would be very interested in an open source Sublime Text clone.

It's not a pet project, I haven't written any real code for it for about 6 months.

My point (which perhaps you missed?) is that you don't get to tell me what I choose to spend my time on.