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Comment by usaphp | Hacker News Reader

Can someone explain me why is everybody so obsessed about sublime not being open source? Being an open source software gives no guarantee that it wont be abandoned one day, and if there is something else better even not open source out there everybody (mostly) will forget about an inferior open source project and use the premium software with better features instead, it happened when sublime text was released and won our hearts, so I don't see how can it becoming open source stop a new premium and better product beat it just like it beat others before...

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I think people started really pushing for an open source ST when JPS kind of disappeared for a year and a half. While he pushed out a few bug fixes[0], you can also see he only pushed out one ST3 update during 2014. Because of this, I think the community was particularly worried about ST development halting, and people started calling for ST to be open sourced because of that.

Particularly, with Sublime, I don't think it being closed source is a particular source of resentment for many people, given how stable it is. That said, given the choice between a stagnant development cycle, and an open source ST, I think most people would prefer an open source ST.

To JPS credit though, he's removed any doubt over the last few months that he wants to continue active development for ST.

[0] http://www.sublimetext.com/3

Yeah, I was one of those who was frustrated that I bought a ST2 license, then a 3 license in beta, only to see ... (nearly) nothing.

But the 3dev channel is getting pretty steady updates now.

I believe the argument for open source is that the community can continue to maintain the software long past when the creator stops (for whatever reason). Responsible maintainers will often seek new developers from the community to take charge (as is the case with marginalia[0], the first project that came to mind). Of course this isn't the only reason why folks want ST to be open source, but I believe this addresses your point about abandoning closed source software.

[0]: http://blog.fogus.me/2013/08/12/marginalia-has-a-new-home/

>I believe the argument for open source is that the community can continue to maintain the software long past when the creator stops

We've seen this fail to be so in practice time and again, if not for the software entirely (which also happens), then for less popular ports, like for OS X and Windows.

Projects can still be abandoned even if they're open source, yes.

But surely the odds of a project's long-term viability [i]increase[/i] if the community has the option of continuing the project, right? Clearly, if the project is [i]not[/i] open-sourced, then its odds of outliving its original author's interest are obviously stuck at 0%.

> But surely the odds of a project's long-term viability increase if the community has the option of continuing the project, right?

I agree with this, but not the following:

> Clearly, if the project is not open-sourced, then its odds of outliving its original author's interest are obviously stuck at 0%.

Because, while the author's interest flagging doesn't necessarily mean a closed-source project is dead, the author could transfer it (open-sourcing could be considered an example, but it could also be sold when they tire of it.)

But with closed source, there is a risk that a time will come, either through neglect or active decision, where development will stop and others will be legally denied the right to take up the maintenance of the system, whereas with open source, the right of interested outside parties to take over is, insofar as this is possible, guaranteed.

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We've also seen it hugely succeed time and again, with software like Open Office and Blender, and the vast cottage communities set up around open sourced video game engines.

It's pretty simple: if the software is unique and offers good enough utility, people will jump on it. If it's open sourced as abandonware, it will probably remain abandonware.

Worked out for Blender. Depends on community I giess.

Well. textmate was also closed source, abandoned and opensoured... Didn't do any good. I'm very happy with ST and hope other people will also buy a license.

Sure about that? https://github.com/textmate/textmate/commits/master

Happy TextMate 2 user here.

Speaking only for myself, I'm not comparing it to random/theoretical OS projects. I'm comparing it to emacs. Sublime is beautiful, but emacs is a lot more likely to survive, and historically, emacs upgrades have broken fewer things. There are also more packages and more available information on how to build things that aren't available. Configuring packages in Sublime wasn't that great.

Obviously, some folks prefer Sublime. But I'd be a lot more interested if it was open source.

Same here. I switched from Emacs to Sublime, but moved back a couple of months ago. I used my Sublime setup as inspiration for making Emacs as pretty, and now love it even more than I did before.

I agree with you a hundred percent. I paid for ST2, and waited for ST3 to get out of beta for ages. After seeing the project halt for a year I made the jump to Emacs. And I can't be happier, I'm able to use the same editor in three different platforms and use the same init.el for all of them. Also I'm able to edit files in a remote server without having to replicate the files locally as ST does.

>I paid for ST2, and waited for ST3 to get out of beta for ages.

I, on the other hand paid for ST2, and have been using ST3 since the first dev builds. Never had any problem, except some small glitch which was fixed in an update 1 or 2 days ago.

UPDATE: On OS X (always with latest stable OS X release), and using SublimeLinter (Python, PHP, JS), GoSublime, Vintageous, a plugin that shows repo changes next to line numbers, and several other plugs. YMMV in other platforms / plugins.

Same here, I am on a dev channel for God knows how many months if not years already, never had a problem so far.

I would have liked to have had a chance at fixing the bug in Sublime that annoyed me daily for ~2 years. It went unacknowledged in the "bug tracker" (a phpBB full of threads no one reads, and bot spam about pay-per-view television).

I think it would be a security concern for a lot of people/companies to trust their source code to a closed-source binary from a relatively untrusted, unknown company.

I think the open source obsession is a bit sad. Open sourcing would mean an end to another entrepreneur and indie developer.

So, instead of open sourcing, I think these should happen:

1. He should get partners who can take care of Sublime Text if he isn't able to do it himself.

2. If Sublime Text is about to become abandonware, then it would be better to sell it to another small company, which could carry on developing it.

Let's say you were working on a plugin and spent I don't know how many thousands of man-hours developing it. Now let's say that the creator of ST was hit by a car. You would be fucked.

Fucked? You would keep using ST as it is until it would no longer run on the current version of the OS. The product wouldn't stop working the day the author quit working on it.

Whereas if the lead developer of Emacs was hit by a car?

Lots of open source projects have 1 or 2 people doing 90% of the work, and when they lose interest (or find the next thing to carea about) they die.

With an open source project, a sufficiently interested third-party has at least the legal right to pick up development of the code base that their work depends on (or to pay the developer of their choice to do so.)

With a closed source project, that's not the case.

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