Sublime Forum

Sublime's future and open source

#5

I guess the only thing that will make Jon to NOT open source in case he’s get bored with ST will actually be a bus. Literally!

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#6

There’s no reason to make it open source at the moment. Sure, open sourced software is brilliant, and it is great among similar communities as the one surrounding Sublime Text, but this has clearly become a full-time venture for Jon, and having to convert to open-source development cycles will probably not be sustainable, or particularly productive for achieving his key goals for Sublime text.

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#7

To be clear, I’m not really asking for ST to be open sourced right now. I appreciate it’s probably an important source of income for the author. And honestly, I’m happy to pay for it.

I guess the “provisions” I was talking about was more like instructions left in a will or some other legal document that can allow for ST to be opensourced under certain conditions.

I don’t understand this reaction. Do you think I’m wishing for this to happen? Is the topic so awkward that we can’t even discuss it? I think it’s reasonable to consider these scenarios.

Suspend disbelief for a moment and imagine if the Linux kernel was closed source and Linus was the sole author. Nobody would be worried about the bus factor with Linus? In many ways a kernel is more easily replaceable for me than a text editor I use for hours every day. We can we talk about the bus factor for Linus but not for Jon? If anything, it’s a compliment. :smile:

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#8

This gets discussed fairly often. It’s more or less just a risk you have to take to use ST2.

I agree completely with that. Switching between OSX, Linux/freeBSD, and Windows is relatively easy for me, but switching between TextMate/TextPad and Sublime took a lot longer.

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#9

Tack’s point is an essential one also for me. I don’t have a problem paying for software, but switching one’s coding editor is a big commitment of time. If I were to switch to Sublime Text, I’d need better assurance that if the author (or some other party) for any reason stops developing it (for my OS), it’ll be open sourced. That might not ensure its development continues, but it’d at least allow me to keep using it for as long as I want, across OS upgrades. As it is, it seems safer to stick to my current editors, inferior as they might be per se.

Authors of Sublime Text: give this assurance on the web site, and you’ll win a new customer right away.

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#10

Not a commitment for your OS (whatever that might be), but a comment of rather seeing it opensourced than abandoned was made by jps

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#11

I’d like to see him state clearly that in the event Sublime Text is no longer sold commercially, it will be open sourced. I fully approve of jps’ interest in making money from the software, and I think making such a promise would not damage the business potential, but increase it.

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#12

It’s funny how people think that an open source project will have success and how this will affect your decision to buy it.

Just think about e-text, how it was open sourced like an year before the author suddenly decided to go silenzio stampa and how the development was very active!

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#13

[quote=“iamntz”]It’s funny how people think that an open source project will have success and how this will affect your decision to buy it.

Just think about e-text, how it was open sourced like an year before the author suddenly decided to go silenzio stampa and how the development was very active![/quote]

That’s exactly what I was going to say!

Also, textmate is only very active right now because at least 95% of the current changes are being made by his creator (Allan Odgaard), even though it is now open source.

I doubt sublime would go far without Jon.

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#14

I’m not saying that an open source project will automatically or perhaps even likely have success. Many don’t. Open source is far from a magic bullet.

What open source does more or less ensure, however, is that it’s possible to keep using the software in new versions of operating systems. It’s usually little effort to fix the application such that it compiles on new versions of the operating system libraries. If an open source application is at all popular, someone is very likely to maintain it at least to the degree of making it work in current versions of relevant platforms.

That’s all I want: confidence that I’ll be able to keep using Sublime Text several years past the time its commercial development ends, were that to one day happen. I believe that’s also Tack’s interest.

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#15

Yeah, that’s exactly it. When I think about my current workflow, which involves vim and a bunch of tiled terminals, this is how I’ve worked for the past 15 years. I have a tremendous muscle-memory investment. Now ST2 has some pretty awesome functionality (including and especially Goto Anything) that’s really luring me away from my tried-and-true terms+vim setup.

But if I’m taking the plunge seriously, which requires easily months worth of retraining and unlearning previous habits (like no replace mode in Vintage mode? Arggh!) and doing that makes me more productive, there’s no reason to think ST2 couldn’t be the foundation of my workflow for the next 15 years.

So when we’re talking about 10-15 years in the future, a closed source, single developer project really is a legitimate concern. I’m surprised by the dismissive attitude on this thread so far. Clearly these users change editors more easily than I do. :smile:

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#16

I’m not saying that this is a solution for your problem but the Vintage mode is open source and if you’re missing some feature from vim you can always help: github.com/sublimehq/Vintage :smile:

Even though I love sublime and I would hate to see it die, I can always go back to VIM.

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#17

Oh yeah, attempt to hack my own replace mode was the first thing I did. :smile:

Unfortunately I failed because although I can toggle overwrite mode from a plugin, I couldn’t find a way to set it specifically on or off, or detect what the current overwrite mode was. As a result, even the existing insert mode is broken, because it retains the overwrite setting between toggling from command mode and insert mode. (From command mode, hit i to enter insert mode, hit the insert key to toggle overwrite, hit escape to go back to command mode, then hit i again. You’re still overwriting text.)

I couldn’t find anything in the plugin documentation to help me get further. I’d intended to start a separate thread about it. More to the point (of this thread), although Vintage mode is OSS, because the core isn’t, my efforts were derailed in short order.

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#18

TextMate 2 is open source (but you do need a mac!!)

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#19

[quote=“growdigital”]

TextMate 2 is open source (but you do need a mac!!)[/quote]

And Notepad++ is Windows only. I use Linux.

But anyway, all that is really beside the point. I’m pretty sure S0und didn’t bother to read my post.

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#20

Sublime Text is great I love it, so imagine what it would if it were open source, I hope someday release the code.

For those looking for a free alternative foicica.com/textadept/

Sorry for my bad english.

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#21

I would gladly pay for sublime even if it is open source and fund its development. I’m pretty sure there is a lot of people who would support sublime if is open source. I this has cost sublime fair share of user base who just jumped to vscode ( soon it may catchup with sublime speed). Which is bulding features that thanks to its open source contributors.Please forgive me if I do sound rude. I guess I could have rephrased it more pleasant. But I do not know the implications of making it open source now since Vsode seems to be gaining upper hand.

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#22

Problem with “alternatives” like foicica.com/textadept/ that are written on top of the good old Scintilla is one (IMHO)… the Scintilla’s implementation of multiple selections is currently incomplete and corky in comparison to ST’s… if this was properly fixed I’d gladly callopen-source editors written on top of Scintilla good alternatives to Sublime for sure.

For more info about what I mean check this ancient issue https://sourceforge.net/p/scintilla/bugs/1224/.

It’s not just the fact undo/redo history of multi selections doesn’t work… it’s also the fact you’ll be forced to have a “main” selection always present in Scintilla… while in Sublime a multiple selection can become an empty list.

Summing up, Sublime implemented the multi selections feature the right way from the very beginning and Scintilla, the main “alternative” to ST has implemented this “must” feature years later to its creation and the author didn’t put enough love into it so the result still needs to be improved to become the real deal

That said, if Scintilla fixed that properly I’d strongly believe it could become a serious contender to SublimeText… you mention VsCode, Atom or other slow competitors. Personally, I won’t even bother to waste my time testing out these electron things as the very foundation is just wrong (sorry to be blunt here)

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#23

Most of the development on VSCode is made by full-time developers paid by Microsoft. Open sourcing Sublime Text wouldn’t be enough to keep the pace without a significant cash flow on the project.

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#24

True as I said even if it is open source there might still be full time devs working on project funded by the community.

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