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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I still don’t get why publishing old source code would increase revenue. Can you explain?
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
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.
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.
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?
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:
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
Best thing I’ve read all year: https://blog.vrypan.net/2011/05/30/intellectual-parenthood/
You wouldn’t require people to have a “License” to hang with your kids, why require a “License” to hang with your software?
It’s stomach turning.
The crazy part is, if done right, you could make 10x+ more money going Early Source.
A fun thread. “Copyright is evil.” 
Talk about a sentiment that evokes the gag reflex.
The amount of money I make as a writer is meager enough. Imagine how well off I’d be if I gave it away for free.
“No one but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.” - Samuel Johnson.
The internet runneth over with blockheads.
Long time ST user here, having rebought the license for both ST and SM a few times over the past 10+ years. This time of the three-year period again, not sure how I ended up here. Anyway, wanted to express some love for the bundle.
Keep up the good work 
I disagree with the whole “release old source code; be ‘early-source’ instead of closed-source” thing, I think requiring a license upgrade every 3 years makes a lot of sense. Sublime Text & Merge are excellent, I use Text often (Merge not all that much because of #1822 and #1825), they should stay sustainable and I reckon the current licensing model allows that.
That said, as a licensed user, a persistent “license upgrade required” message at the corner of my window or in the title bar would be kinda off-putting… thoughts on making this an ocassional message on launch instead (like the “thanks for trying out Sublime Text” message that shows on launch, during evaluation)?
Some people seems to be upset about license upgrading, you can help them by making the warning “License upgrade required” more prominent. You could put them near “Update Available” or somewhere on the right, or just use a different color/style/weight.
I agree, the “License update required” message should be more prominent. Right now it is easy to miss among other notifications. For example: Instead of plain text, use a warning icon (like a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark) next to “License update required”. This will immediately catch the user’s attention.
You are aware that Microsoft is harvesting so much data that people should be paid to use VS code…