Sublime Forum

After recent update I see LICENSE UPGRADE REQUIRED

#182

That’s fine and it was also fine for previous ST3 point updates. What’s not fine is showing a modal update dialog that looks exactly like previous point updates but actually upgrades the program to a version which is incompatible with the previously purchased license. Moreover, the upgraded version requires the purchase of a new license for continued use (as clearly stated on the download page).

Due to this deceptive behavior users cannot make informed decisions. As there was no action taken from the Sublime HQ team in response to the many people reporting this, one can only assume that this is very much intentional. Otherwise they would have disabled the update check by now to avoid misleading their customers. I am also very skeptical to the argument that this was an oversight. For the first major upgrade in years, the upgrade path of existing customers must have been clearly defined.

FWIW, personally I decided that the Sublime HQ team cannot be trusted anymore. Who knows what the next update will bring. This time we were lucky that many (not all) were able to downgrade to ST3 without issues. Next time they might break the configuration so no downgrade is possible anymore or change the license at will. It’s a good time to explore alternatives that actually respect their users/ customers.

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#183

read my reply on this. Also this one. And finally this one.

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#184

What about them? None of them address the fact that the Sublime HQ team could resolve the issue by disabling the update check but seemingly decided that they rather want to continue deceiving their existing customers.

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#185

Nobody is deceiving you. You can update and downgrade ST optionally.

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#186

Seriously why is he still here? If he doesn’t work for Sublime, does he have nothing better to do?

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#187

I like to share the things I enjoy about ST too. Made thread about Themes and Color Schemes. Feel free to have look or recommend anything.

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#188

Firefox and Edge do now do auto-updates, but neither have ever auto-updated their app, then splashed a license alert at me—but oh, I can go to their site and downgrade to their previous version to keep using their previous version. It’s a non sequitur. Guaranteed if they change their license terms to include or adjust pricing, we’re gonna see it prior to the install.

Sorry for the incorrect reply, @Gatontillica

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#189

So we have gone for the “nuclear option” … moved one of our projects to atom:
atom.io
A reasonably painless transition. And for those of us used to Sublime’s Monokai theme (like me) there’s an identical theme for atom as well (“atom-sublime-monokai”).
We do (mostly) open source, atom is open source. Logical move.

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#190

At the beginning I wanted to point out that I am a longtime user, since ST2, paying for the license. And I like to pay for the good software I use - I like how authors are rewarded for their hard work.

However, version-limited or time-limited licenses are a bit of a problem for me. Mainly because it is often not known what we pay for. You then pay for a product that can actually be abandoned at any time and in any state. In extreme situations, it happens that companies offer theoretical lifetime support for a specific version, but they release another one and stop patching bugs in the previous one. Is it fair?

I think this worries ST users a bit, especially when looking at developer activity in different years and the number of versions (ST3):
2013 12
2014 1
2015 2
2016 4
2017 1
2018 2
2019 3
2020 0
2021 0

Without a formalized publishing plan, you don’t know what you pay for. For this reason, I have already given up several programs in favor of those where the situation is clear.

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#191

I understand the concern. SublimeHQ is a developer focused and owned program. Communication is a weak point for them. Since they are literally 6 people. They don’t have a dedicated sales team and a dedicated communication team like you see with Mozilla, Google and Microsoft.

I also thought before ST was dying, but after searching the web, I stumbled upon a repo by @jfcherng that told the changelog about Sublime Text 4. They were testing on a discord group for months. I dont have discord, but they were communicating with there most loyal fanbase to squash bugs and get better feedback before this release.

I am writing this to you to tell that Sublime Text is alive and getting better. Just because you don’t you don’t see it in plain sight or see it frequently everyday, doesn’t mean there is no development activity. If you want to support SublimeHQ and their work, buy a new license for ST4.

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#192

We, testers on Discord, definitely didn’t test the upgrade popup part :upside_down_face:

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#193

I was a loyal Sublime Text user, paying for licenses since early ST2 (and twice for ST3). Bought sublime SFTP and the Sublime Text Power User book. I organised to buy corporate licenses for my team and have always shown it off to people who were interested in my workflow. I was excited to see ST4, and thinking that I’d take advantage of the bundle/upgrade and get into git.
However, I turned up here looking for an Australian Dollar payment option and found this awful thread (with its very own troll). Mogeb’s updates-per-year shows most starkly that, even if one is prepared to put up with – indeed reward – the “sorry, not sorry” from the company and the tiny upgrade discount, there’s just not much to look forward to.
My last licence purchase was three years and three months ago, over which time I only saw a small handful of updates. People get passionate about their text editors, and I thought these days it was clear that companies had to get passionate about their customers (the other half of that parasocial bargain), lest they end up without any.
I’m torn; do I pay up and support behaviour I detest or vote with my dollars and attention for something else, perhaps the open source atom (thanks for the tip, @st.gothian)?
And damn the inept marketing that requires I make this decision; text editors shouldn’t be about moral choices, they’re more important than that!

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#194

Excellent summary of the predicament we find ourselves in.
The complete lack of engagement of the uniquely pretentiously named Sublime HQ on this forum certainly fails to impress as well. Sigh. Moving on …
BTW.: github support in atom works rather well.

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#195

I’m pretty sure this was foreseen coming at least to some degree by the ST team. But if you think about it what else they can do. The market changed drastically in the past couple of years, hint hint, a large corporation entering the market that you are in, and providing similar service for ‘free’. Do you think if ST lower their price margins are going to make it given the shrinking user base?

In any case none of us really knows with certainty what the situation is, but it’s a good idea to look at the broader picture before criticizing. You have to truly value what ST offers to pay that price is how I’m seeing it. Not having frequent updates doesn’t bother me at all. Staying on a ST version that I payed for years ago bothers me a lot.

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#196

I don’t think it’s too weird or extreme to ask $80 every 3 years for software like Sublime. And if you manage to make a living from programming, I think it’s only fair to pay for the tools you use.
Making a single sale once and providing updates for free for the rest of your life is not a viable business model. And even if it were, more revenue means you can invest it in a bigger team and provide more features.

$30/year translates to $2.22/month, which is well below the price for some other software. Most of the Adobe software starts at $10/month, and some of the Autodesk products are a couple of $100.

That said though, I decided to finally try out VSCode today, something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time but this seemed like the perfect moment. And I must say I am really happy with that decision. VSCode seems like a nice alternative.

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#197

TL;DR: you don’t want to pay for a new license, because of frivolous reasons.

If your moving on, why are you still here?

Certainly a lot better than switching to Atom. There are features in VS Code that I missed so much, that I replicated some in ST through plugins.

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#198

… in a way I have to thank our little troll here - If he hadn’t been so persistently droll I probably would have paid up and never made the move.

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#199

Use whatever you want, but if your basis to do so is the opinion of someone you disagree with, then you have problem.

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#200

I miss will.

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#201

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

If VScode ends up being complete shite I’ll swing back around, but I doubt that’s the case. Thing is I actually chose ST3 years back when I first started heavily using a text editor over VScode because you guys were doing a better job. Now VScode is. As I read thru the comments it seems like customer service is absent here. I definitely will pay for a developers work, it’s just that this situation was initially handled incorrectly and it continues to be.

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