Sublime Forum

Is Sublime Text abandonware? (tell me it ain't so)

#1

This is the question that has been bouncing around in my brain, but I’ve avoided asking for fear of the answer.

The latest indicator is that package control has been down for 9 days. Even when it is working, new and updated packages/plugins have slowed to a trickle and many of the most popular plugins date back at least 6 years, suggesting others have already walked away.

Does SublimeText HQ ever respond to its user community? If so, through what channels? Are we able to get a sense of the current and future state of this wonderful product?

5 Likes
#2

Is Sublime Text abandonware?

We published a new version of ST just yesterday: https://www.sublimetext.com/dev. Seems early to be calling it abandoned.

Package control is currently a 3rd party service, until that changes there’s unfortunately little we can do on our end to fix this. Note that package control is still functional for installing packages from within Sublime Text, it seems to only be the website that’s down. Hopefully @wbond can find the time to fix it.

Does SublimeText HQ ever respond to its user community? If so, through what channels? Are we able to get a sense of the current and future state of this wonderful product?

I regularly respond on this forum and on discord.

7 Likes
#3

Unfortunatelly crawer is down, too, so no new packages or updates will be delivered.

ST’s Package Control installer still installs Package Control 3 which does no longer work on most current Mac/Linux boxes, causing end users challenges to get started. Without access to packagecontrol.io or wbond taking action the ecosystem is at a partly broke stall.

2 Likes
#4

Thank you for communicating on this.

I think there might be a disconnect between how you see things: “Package control is currently a 3rd party service, until that changes there’s unfortunately little we can do on our end to fix this” and how your community does.

I think for many of us package control is an intrinsic part of the Sublime Text user experience. So it’s difficult to understand this casual take on the situation. This is a big deal.

I just went through the process of reinstalling all my packages without package control and it’s not trivial and far from a pleasant experience.
Moreover supply chain attacks from a neglected software delivery channel is a real issue.
The standards of text editor plugin management in 2024 are not the ones from 2008.

Thank you for producing Sublime and all the hard work that goes into it. I, and probably many others, truely appreciate it. Please offer an alternative or take package control over ASAP. Send a strong signal that you stand behind your plugin experience. I really want Sublime to succeed.

1 Like
#5

https://packagecontrol.io/browse is back online at the moment

2 Likes
#7

Forgive me, @bschaaf. This was not intended to be an attack on the product or on your hard work, although on re-reading my post, I can absolutely see how it could be read as such. Forgive my clumsy language.

It was more out of a genuine anxiety and uncertainty of the future of our much-loved ST. I am delighted to hear that it is still in active development.

I share the sentiment of many that package control itself is a linchpin feature of its continued success. Without a vibrant community willing to share extensions and a marketplace to do so, it leaves coding newbies like myself a little lost at sea.

2 Likes
#8

This subject seems to be popping up more frequently lately. Package Control is a third party plugin (with a remote server application) created as a labor of love and generously gifted to the ST community. However, like all community plugins there is no expected guarantee of support. And there is no expectation of quality control from PC beyond the minimum needed to auto-package and auto-update, and maybe a few suggested improvements from some tireless admins. This is apparently no different from VS Code marketplace, with the big exception that the mechanics of their version are owned and managed by some folks with very deep pockets.

The reality is that Sublime HQ is unlikely (maybe not unwilling) to take ownership of PC (pockets not quite as deep) and it will continue along its present trajectory with occasional outages and generally increasing levels of cruft. Eventually it will run its course and cease to be, or at least at a reduced level of usability, unless someone steps up and takes responsibility. Barring that, it’s probably worthwhile discussing eventual alternatives. I can conjecture some sort of github-based plugin pull model, with some static method of advertising of features, version, git uri, … User decides what they want and does a simple pull into their User directory. Periodically check for updates and re-pull. Overly simplistic yes, but maybe it can jog others imaginations for a minimal, almost-zero overhead system.

0 Likes
#9

I have to admit that Package Control is a huge part of why I love Sublime Text and continue to use (and pay for) it. If PC were to disappear and a suitable replacement not come to light the functionality of ST would be measurably reduced. I do like the idea of a git enabled replacement, though I’m not sure how that would function.

There are other communities that have these types of projects (Ruby Gems, NPM, etc.) How are they supported? What keeps them going? Can PC copy the way they work in some way?

1 Like
#10

Package Control 4 already serves python 3.8 libraries by a purely github pages based approach without any change required on client side.

With some effort to work around GH’s API rate limits by crawling package updates in chunks this approach would work as a full replacement for all packages.

The primary quest is to also provide a frontend of statically created pages, which display package’s README and some descriptions - updated by crawler. The downside however would be loosing all sorts of stats, like “trending” or “popular” packages.

1 Like