"License Upgrade Required" message makes me want to puke

[djohnston]

Hi @breck7,

We appreciate your feedback and just wanted to explain the difference between the Sublime Merge license and a subscription to help clarify the model and language used.

A license for Sublime Merge is a one-time purchase that grants you perpetual access to all versions released within three years of the purchase date. This means even if you decide not to upgrade your license after three years you can continue to use any version of Sublime Merge released within/prior to your licensed period indefinitely. You have access to these versions for ever.

In contrast, a subscription model (which we have for business licenses) requires a continuous subscription to maintain access to the software. If you end the subscription, you will lose access to the licensed features entirely (regardless of which version of Sublime Merge is in use).

I hope this clarifies the licensing model and language used within the interface.

As a small local Australian business we really appreciate your support and understanding, and hope you can continue to enjoy using Sublime Merge.

Many thanks,
- Dylan from Sublime HQ

[herodot]

@breck7 interestingly it doesn’t seem to bother you that your entire operation system (and with it, hardware ecosystem) is closed and you paid for the license

[breck7]

interestingly it doesn’t seem to bother you that your entire operation system (and with it, hardware ecosystem)

if you saw my “colorful” emails to tim@apple.com, you would know that this bothers me quite a lot

This is a very common practice

that does not make it right.

As a small local Australian business

I get it and though my language is harsh, it’s coming from a place of love.

God forbid Sublime isn’t able to make it as a business and we have to resort to BloatCode.

I just hope that a lightbulb will go off in one of your heads someday with an idea on how to build a thriving business but not relying on ancient laws that treat ideas (and people) poorly. It’s a tough problem to solve though, I get it.

[Another]

WTF is this?

That’s the sign that you have received all the updates that you agreed to when you purchased the software.

Now you get to use the software you have for the rest of your life at absolutely no charge. I know this is a very frustrating limitation.

Change the wording to “Subscription Upgrade Required” and I’d be fine with it.

Well, this implies that you’re fine with the concept, but all butt-hurt about the wording. Chill out man, jeez. I see there’s a professional response from Sublime HQ above… in my mind though, it contained all my favorite Straya slang, and as much as I would have enjoyed reading THAT, at least the boys down at Sublime can take solace in knowing that we’re all THINKING it.

Sublime is still my daily editor after about, shoot, 15 years or so? I’m sure I’ve bought it multiple times. The idea that a team of people work on something for 15 years without compensation is crazy.

Imagining that sending emails to Tim Cook is a productive use of your time is farcical, but that data does provide everyone here excellent input in how seriously to consider your concerns, so it’s appreciated.

[breck7]

The idea that a team of people work on something for 15 years without compensation is crazy.

And I never said that.

When a janitor cleans a toilet, do you hunt him down and pay him a “license” every time you take a whiz?

No.

You pay the janitor for work done. It’s simpler and far better.

The idea of “license” on ideas is disgusting. We will look back at these days as a dark ages of sorts.

What is a better alternative?

Sublime should be Early Source–a new alternative to closed source. The source code from ~N years ago should be published openly to the public domain. If you want the latest and greatest, you pay for it and you get it “Early”.

I would love to pay Sublime Text for Early Source.

[deathaxe]

And how would it financially change the current situation?

You now have a license which covers SM up to build 2091, which can be used forever.

If you want a newer one, you are kindly asked (hinted) to further support developement team for their on-going efforts to improve the tool without any functional disadvantages or features being locked.

With “Early Source”, you’d probably have $0 access to an way more out-dated version of SM.

Or do you expect those Early Source to just be max 1 year old so you can go on upgrading forever without any charge? Or would you be fine with the approach Adobe was taking by open sourcing Photoshop sources from 1992 to prevent your intended kind of parasitism of using “nearly up to date” versions?

Happy you, if you are weathly enough to not need to earn money with your every day work.

That said, we should be happy about those remaining trustworthy companies, which build applications which only do what they are intended for instead of being honey pots to collect all sorts of user information or being used as advertisement plattform primarily.

ST and SM don’t collect any telementry (except some crash dumps) and do not follow a selling user data bussiness model. That’s what I love them for!

IMHO we are living in a dark age of pseudo open source software locking in users to certain platforms to collect all sorts of sensitive data in order to sell them.

You’ll always pay!

Open source is not a solution for everything. Just have a look at all those hundreds of thoughands of dead projects hanging around out there. There are a couple of platforms which benefit - sure - but those are some popular minorities.

[breck7]

And how would it financially change the current situation?

It wouldn’t. It would be the exact same. I am happy to pay Sublime $100 a year (or whatever it is I pay), for Early Source. I spend hours a day in Sublime and Sublime Merge. I would happily pay $200 a year for Early Source for both of them. People that don’t spend hours a day in them can dont have to pay for Early Source, and they can use the public domain open source version from 2021 (If N = 3, or whatever). Professionals like me who greatly benefit from bug fixes etc pay for Early Source.

The difference btween Early Source and “License” is about truth and honesty. When you think about what “License” means, when it comes to ideas, from first principles, it’s a pretty distopian thing. Not how ideas (or people) should be treated.

[bschaaf]

The difference btween Early Source and “License” is about truth and honesty. When you think about what “License” means, when it comes to ideas, from first principles, it’s a pretty distopian thing. Not how ideas (or people) should be treated.

Licenses are just a natural consequence of copyright. This “early source” you’re suggesting is also a license, as are open source software licenses.

[breck7]

Licenses are just a natural consequence of copyright.

And when you model it (https://breckyunits.com/a-mathematical-model-of-copyright.html) you have to conclude copyright is evil. It is the opposite of property rights–it is a restrictions of someone’s freedom!

This “early source” you’re suggesting is also a license,

No it is not. I’m saying you put your code out there public domain. If people pay, you give them a password to download the latest source code. If that person were to leak that source code to the web, you’d disable their password and carry on. The word “license” would never appear anywhere in your product or source code.

[bschaaf]

And when you model it (https://breckyunits.com/a-mathematical-model-of-copyright.html) you have to conclude copyright is evil . It is the opposite of property rights–it is a restrictions of someone’s freedom!

I’m not here to debate that, but fact is we live in a world with copyright and thus licenses are necessary.

No it is not. I’m saying you put your code out there public domain.

Not how that works. Depending on where you live copyright cannot be given up. This is why permissive software licenses and things like CC0 exist. To effectively put something in the public domain you have to provide it under a license that grants equivalent rights as if it were public domain.

If people pay, you give them a password to download the latest source code. If that person were to leak that source code to the web, you’d disable their password and carry on. The word “license” would never appear anywhere in your product or source code.

First of all if you just provide a download of source code it would still be proprietary. No sharing, modifying or I believe even compiling it would constitute a copyright violation. For the source code to be useful to anyone it would have to be provided under a license.

Second of all, we use a number of open source libraries. Which are provided under an open source license, you can see them under Help > Licenses and Attribution in recent builds. Again out of necessity those licenses would also be included. Because that’s how that works.

Thirdly I’d love to know how you suggest finding out which person leaked the source code, and how we can possibly continue to employ developers when our work is given away for effectively free.

[breck7]

I’m not here to debate that, but fact is we live in a world with copyright and thus licenses are necessary.

I appreciate that you are open to copyright being evil and you are doing your best to follow the rules of the land.

However, I do want to plant the seed to consider that your statement would also apply to 1830’s Mississippi (“I’m not here to debate that, but fact is we live in a world with [slavery] and thus [Freedom] licenses are necessary.” Freedom licenses were licenses black people were required to carry if they had been freed from slavery.

Freedom%20License%20Report.pdf

Copyright and licenses are on the wrong side of history.

how we can possibly continue to employ developers when our work is given away for effectively free.

I think you would make MORE money with an Early Source. Set N = 4 to start. That means that you publish the source code to Sublime Text as it existed in 2020.

Many young people and amateurs would use it. You replay the git commits so they can keep upgrading as well, except they are always 4 years behind.

Then all your paying users would get a link to the latest binaries or something. There’s obviously some important details to get right, but it could work.

Could be a win-win-win.

There is zero reason from first principles why there is ever any need of “licenses”. Not in theory, not empirically. Tim Berners-Lee and the World Wide Web, and D. Hipp and Sqlite, are doing just fine with public domain.

[breck7]

Also, I know I am very much an extremist on this issue. I appreciate you listening, and definitely think your time is more important to go into making Sublime continue to kick ass.

Ultimately this is a minor thing in regards to sublime, and a big thing in regards to society. I am perfectly happy to put this convo on the back burner so you can get back to your kick ass work.

I do appreciate your engagement and listening to my (admittedly outlier) perspective.

[clci]

I still don’t get why publishing old source code would increase revenue. Can you explain?

[Another]

Flat earth here we come.

[slawtul]

@breck7

It’s only 99$ for 3 years. It’s 2.75$ per month.
This conversation is useless - just buy a new “license” and enjoy using the app.

Greetings from sunny Kraków
Slawek

[breck7]

People without disposable income (think kids, students), would love to use an old free version of Sublime.

Then they will get used to the Sublime ecosystem, package building, et cetera.

Later, when they have disposable income, they’ll buy Sublime Early Source.

Instead right now every young person I’ve worked with uses VS Code, which is free, and invests their time in writing VS Code extensions, etc.

[breck7]

I am willing to pay far more than $99 for 3 years.

I’d happily pay $99 a year for each of Sublime Text + Sublime Merge.

But I hate supporting the archaic closed source “license” bllsht.

Licenses should NEVER be applied to ideas. Ever!

We should not be doing it anymore.

If you don’t understand why, go take some long walks and think about it.

Maybe read Stephan Kinsella, an IP-Lawyer turned Anti-IP (https://www.stephankinsella.com/) or read some stuff from yours truly (https://breckyunits.com/freedom.html)

It doesn’t have to be this way.

We can create a super win-win-win-win.

[jfcherng]

I would say that you invent your own product and license it to users in whatever way you like. The one who has to worry about how to make money with ST is Jon, not you. You are not the first one to provide an “insightful” open-source it to make money opinion.

Plus, this thread becomes not meaningful. Isn’t the issue be “License Upgrade Required” message makes me want to puke”? Now it’s related to open source?

[clci]

You’re projecting what you would do onto anybody else.

Why someone would preferer an OLD version of ST (with less features and maybe more bugs) over the latest VSCode? The youngsters you’re working with use VSCode because:

• It’s free
• It’s packed with useful features and plugins, a lot more that ST
• Everybody else in their team already use it
• They don’t care about what makes ST better than VSCode
• Don’t forget it’s also free

[pzgz]

Long time ST user, I really didn’t aware the license will expire even there’s no major version update. Saw the Licnese Upgrade Required message today, and just felt so bad…

Actually, ST is not my daily editor longer, I have moved all my new projects into vsCode, even ruby projects, ST’s just for some old projects which have ST project file configured. I moved to vscode simply because of the ecosystem, I think the ST ecosystem is dying.

But I still kept ST, and upgraded to ST4, and I even asked myself if there’ll be ST5, am I still want to purchase the upgrade or not. But now I think I have the answer now