Sublime Forum

After recent update I see LICENSE UPGRADE REQUIRED

#154

I haven’t been happy with sublime text 3 for a while anyway. Will be moving back over to vscode after this. They support git for free, so that’ll be nice to have. later.

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#155

That is peanuts for anyone getting paid as a developer.

No, it’s more expensive since you pay per year with a business account. That said, nothing stops you using your personal license in a company environment.

Jetbrains is an IDE. Not a text editor. It is made and supported by a bigger company that can price more aggressively in the market.

Are you by chance a linux user? Upgrade and downgrade works fine on Windows.

Give Sublime another try. I made a thread about plugins for people like you. There is a free and open-source git extension there.

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#156

I saw exactly the same upgrade message I’ve always seen for ST3: that a new version was available. Although it hasn’t happened that often in previous years, it has happened, and I’ve happily upgraded to a new version of ST3 each time.

The most recent process was identical. It said nothing about the new version being ST4 rather than a newer version of ST3.

I installed the upgrade just as I always have, expecting the same thing that’s always happened in the past to happen this time too—that I’d get a newer version of ST3.

I was happy to pay for a new license after realizing that ST4 had been installed instead. (If I wasn’t, I would have gone back to ST3.)

Having said that, I completely agree with everybody who’s unhappy about the complete lack of transparency provided by seeing exactly the same upgrade message that we’ve always had for ST3.

I’ve installed many upgrades to newer major versions of software in the past that have also required a new license, and none of them have failed to indicate what was actually going on.

For a professional piece of software that I’ve fully supported for years, this behaviour is disappointing.

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#157

Yep, Xubuntu user – tried to downgrade using apt install sublime-text=3211 and it shit the bed. Already installed VS Code and it even has an import-all-your-settings-from-sublime option that worked seamlessly, so all’s well that ends well I guess!

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#158

yup, he/she is definitely a troll. maybe he/she had a bad childhood or got divorced, who knows what makes he/she behaves like this. seems like he/she is the only spokeperson from sublimehq. but he/she cannot say the f-word to our face, the only other way is to troll with words, finding little technical term to annoy people and to say ‘sorry, not sorry’, ‘goodbye, you won’t be missed’ to us that complains. let’s be clear about something, it’s perfectly fine for anyone to complain/whine. it’s only human. and that spoke-person just kept on trolling, I just wish there’s more that would come here and complain and whine more, and to let the troll works more, it’s the troll’s job apparently, and seems to be getting kicks out of it as well.

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#159

Ok, lets make this simple game: true of false

  1. This update was handled improperly, simply because it upgrades to a new major without saying anything about it?

true - That’s not how it’s done usually

  1. This is shady practise on behalf of the ST team, there is no info on what’s going on.

false - You can navigate to https://www.sublimetext.com, click on Downloads and you can see the full changelog. At the top of it there is a link saying: See also the Announcement Post, clicking on that reveals the License Changes at the top - don’t argue with me that clicking two links is hard

  1. ST team invalidated my license, that I bought?

false - You can downgrade to ST3 and you can use your existing license that you bought forever, how? - again it’s the first link inside the header, it says Download and then you can pick ST3 from the sidebar

  1. ST pushes unwanted automatic updates to me?

false - That depends on your setup, you have the option to download the tarball and use that instead of relying on the automatic update features of your OS

  1. ST harasses me with an upgrade popup every time I start the editor?

false - You can set "update_check": false to disable that behavior

  1. The license fee is too high even for upgrade?

false - Pricing is not your concern, because that’s not your own business

  1. I have to pay a high price in order to try out ST4?

false - You can still trial it indefinitely

  1. The ST price tag is too high, I have no other options to get my work done?

false - There are plenty of other options, free ones as well

  1. I am a payed ST employee?

false - I just had a couple of minutes to kill this morning.

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ST3 Update now is ST4
#160

Great summary, and I agree with every point. The whole drama only started because of the combination of point 1. and the fact that point 5. was not documented.

So basically for us that don’t care about ST4 or previous ST3 updates and didn’t know we could opt out of update checking, being confronted with the “LICENSE UPGRADE REQUIRED” was a nasty shock.

The same as we can excuse the devs for not handling the ST4 update properly we can also be excused for being maybe a bit too dramatic in response.

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#161

I don’t think anything was done in a mischievous way.

But I’m a bit displeased by the migration path. No significant upgrades in 3 years or so. Now it would have to bring a lot more to the table to justify a 80$ expense (to each is own, obviously).

In the past 3 years VSCode ecosystem and experience has improved dramatically. I still love my ST3 because it’s the quickest to open and is packed with power user features, but I find myself installing less and less plugins (this role is now taken by VSCode, and when I need a full fledged IDE I open Intellij). Fact is: for me ST3 is perfect the way it is. For 25-50$ or so, I’d have solved the nagging screen issue with an upgrade. For now I’m part of the "update_check": false team. That was my two cents.

Email us a special offer whenever :wink:

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#162

yes, yet another unhappy user here …

First, let me say this:

Please do not upgrade to 4.0!

An existing user base is the most valuable asset any software company has.

  1. The door is already open, i.e., the company already has access to the customer
  2. Existing customers have already shown a willingness to pay for your product
  3. A high percentage of the existing customer base is willing to pay for a major upgrade, it the price is right and the process is reasonably transparent

Attempting to trick this valuable customer base like ST has done here, is usually a sign of desperation, i.e., a sign that the company is financially in trouble.
In my experience, it is much more rational to cut your losses and look for an alternative. I found mine (atom, see above).

PS.: Every community has it’s troll - I am really impressed how few fed it …

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#163

nobody tricked you. program simply pushed the latest stable release and you accepted it. SublimeHQ is small company made of 6 people. They aren’t bleeding money.

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#164

I would like to add myself to the list of people saying that the problem is the lack of advance warning. Maybe I would be okay with paying Sublime $99 every 3 years for a quality product. But you have to ask “would you like to pay $99” and give me a chance to say yes or no, not revoke my license from under me and say afterward sorry that update you already installed secretly costs $99.

Even besides this, the ST4 upgrade is very disruptive! I would have liked advance warning of a major, disruptive upgrade even if there wasn’t a price tag attached. The upgrade made my computer unusable for several hours (an “index” was being rebuilt and ST4 took 100% CPU until it was done… I had to leave it running overnight) and the new version removes or breaks existing features (“New View Into File” replaced with a different and buggy “Split View” feature). Autocomplete is now slower and is giving me nonsensical suggestions in nonsensical places. I expect I will be downgrading, not just because the upgrade costs money, but because the upgrade is of inferior quality. This upgrade/downgrade cycle (I assume it will now rebuild the “index” again?) is going to cost me hours of time in the middle of a work week. I usually expect Sublime Text will be the “no drama” editor and will not subject me to work interruptions like this.

(Actually, I didn’t mean to upgrade at all— I accidentally clicked “upgrade” when the box appeared under my cursor as I was opening the program. But I guess that part is “my fault”… technically…)

Announcing an upgrade requires a new license after the upgrade is plainly absurd, there is no defense for this.

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#165

here is the TLDR for those looking to downgrade.

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#166

It seems to be a very commonly held belief by people that experienced the update (which was indeed not as smooth as it could be, as has been mentioned countless times and which has been officially acknowleded) that somehow your existing ST3 license is no longer valid and you must either pay again or get off the boat.

I’m not sure if that’s just a case of people inadequately expressing a sentiment, trying to rock the boat by stating an outright lie, or if people actually believe it to be true, so just to clarify:

Your license is not revoked; it’s just a license for ST3 that requires an upgrade fee to be paid to be a license for ST4. Everyone is free to reinstall ST3 where the license will happily continue to work forever. The license you have and have been using is in no way damaged, revoked, or inaccessible.

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#167

that somehow your existing ST3 license is no longer valid and you must either pay again or get off the boat

The license to the program on my computer is no longer valid. I guess I can go install some other program that is not currently on my computer, but that will mean more disruption to my workday and possibly config corruption as several people above have described.

The point is a button labeled “Upgrade” (previously used only for point upgrades) moved my computer from a state where I had a copy of Sublime Text with a valid license to a copy of Sublime Text with no valid license. My license was revoked, I must do work to get it back.

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#168

I believe they are just simply reducing all of this to SublimeHQ misdirected them into updating Sublime Text so they could push people into paying for a new license. While its true that misdirection is a common dark pattern, it doesn’t apply to this case. They are just looking to blame something or someone because they dislike the change. Change in this case can be the new licensing model or simply the the new UX in Sublime Text in the form of better autocomplete or suggestions for example.

You have a ST3 license, then it is valid in ST3. You can reinstall it. The license still works there.

1 Like
#169

I can only recommend not to pay for the update at this time.
A company which “pushes the latest stable release” (as the troll puts it) to its customer base without informing the customer that this is a substantial upgrade with a price tag attached to it, is in trouble and may not be around for long.

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#170

To start, I would have happily paid for a new license if Sublime had been upfront about the nature of the upgrade. As it is, I was just getting minimalist “Update available” dialogs when I started every day. But I use Sublime Text in Linux, so I don’t go to the website and download a new version. I go to my package manager and tell it do update. I open a terminal and type “dnf update” and sublime_text is just a line item in a long list of available updates. It is absolutely not obvious that this update is to a new major version which obligates me to pay.

Ugh! Now I need to downgrade to a previous version. If I was using Windows, I could pretty simply uninstall and go download the previous version. I’m sure there is a way to tell my package manager to downgrade the installed version, but I have never done that before, so now I need to figure that out. And then I need to configure it to stop flagging updates for this repo. It’s a bother. I should not have to take positive action to keep myself from buying something that I never agreed to buy.

Hear this: IF A NEW VERSION HAS NEW LICENSE TERMS THEN MAKE A NEW REPO! Not doing so, even if not explicitly shady, has the strong appearance of being shady. And it seriously undermines my trust in this company to deal honestly with me in the future.

I have been a happy, paying Sublime Text customer for years. Now I am talking with colleagues about which editors they use and why they like them. This is what happens when a company betrays trust.

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#171

It is a bold claim. Do you have any proof about this?

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#172

Sublime Text has always been an unlimited trial. People using ST either pay for a license or simply run as I stated before.

They do have a blog post page in the site informing about the update. If you refer to the program not telling you, then that is pretty normal behavior for programs on desktop computers. See Mozilla Firefox for example. You get an update prompt and download it if you wish so.

The same thing I wrote to @st.gothian.

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#173

So?

And, it’s not “pretty normal behavior,” at least in the circumstance that I described. If updates to commercial products for Linux make major changes to the terms of use, then the package gets a new name or is put in a new repository. That way, users don’t subject themselves to new terms by simply executing a pedestrian system update. That’s “pretty normal behavior” on Linux.

It’s not, “When you update, you need to pay a license fee,” it’s, “Now that you’ve updated, you need to pay a license fee.” That’s what has people so riled. There are industry-standard best practices for this kind of thing, and this situation fell well short of the mark.

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