Please purchase a license. We would rather see Jon’s time spend adding features and fixing bugs, rather than flipping burgers or pursuing a career in “human directional advertising” handing out pamphlets and coupons dressed as a giant chicken.

Edit: This thread used to be titled “Please reduce licensing costs for single users”.
This was the original post:

[quote]John,

Please consider a cheaper model for purchasing licenses for Sublime Text.
You will be surprised how many more people are willing to buy a license for $30.

I LOVE the features of the editor, but the price is a bit steep compared to other (lesser) text editors.

Sincerely,
Grant
[/quote]

I have seen the light. Hallelujah!

I would compare Sublime to other top tier editors like TextMate, BBEdit and Coda 2. Comparing to those Sublime is on the cheaper side. I’m not sure what the paid options are on the windows side though. There are very flew editors that are cross platform like Sublime. If there are any there are probably java based.

[quote=“Grant”]John,

Please consider a cheaper model for purchasing licenses for Sublime Text.
You will be surprised how many more people are willing to buy a license for $30.
[/quote]

I find the current price entirely fair. It’s one of the 2 software I spend most time in (the other is Altap Salamander) and the money I put to purchase both licenses is some of the money I best spent in my whole life. Also, excluding Emacs and VIM (tried both, wasted a lot of time learning both, then decided they’re not for me) it’s the only quality cross-platform editor I know.

If John wants to reduce the licensing costs, that’s his choice, however, I looked at it as the cost of a programming book. Most of those run at least $50 and some run even higher. Unlike most of the books I’ve bought over the years, I use Sublime Text 2 every day. It ended up being a very fair cost for me.

Not saying your wrong however. I read an article (on gizmodo I think…) about how when reducing the licensing costs per user, your user base jumps up significantly and you end up making even more money than you would have at the higher rate. That being said, I think ST2 is in more of a niche market so there may not be that much more of a user base to capture. More research is probably needed.

I do have to give John mad props for his licensing scheme. I love the concept of per-user licensing instead of per machine, per core, etc.
Thank you John for going with a sensible scheme!!!

You have as much time as you need to save up the money, since there’s no time limit.

The cost is definitely fair in my opinion. A lot of people who use Sublime Text 2 will use it at least a few hours nearly every day. Besides my browser and email client, there are no other apps I use more. It is the main app in my arsenal of apps that help me make a living. That makes it worth the asking price to me.

I find it pretty fair and cheap (even though i’m not rich). As @impeached said, you have a lot of time to save money and buy it since there’s currently no enforced time limit for the evaluation.

I don’t really see any issue with the current price. It’s about the same price as a game nowadays, except I use Sublime almost every day, whereas most games last about a week or so (with the exception of a few). Plus it makes my work far more enjoyable. Overall, $60 for that kind of day-to-day improvement is extremely nice. So, would I like it if I paid less? Sure, but, at the same time, I think Sublime’s current price is extremely reasonable and fair.

I have no problem at all with the price. With the recent shutdown of Sparrow (Mac email client) and others, we’re reminded of the need to financially support the software we find valuable.

If your profession is a trucker or ship captain, then you buy the best seat you can find.
If your profession is a carpenter, then you buy the best tools you can find.
If your profession is a businessman, then you buy the best suits you can find.
If your profession is a chef, then you buy the best knives you can find.

I suppose then that if your profession is in programming, software development, or software engineering, then you buy the best supporting software you can find.

Alright, you win. It surprises me just how many people defend the price rather than argue with it.

As I’m sure it’s been asked before:
What do you get for buying a license, other than the removal of a nagging popup and the peace of mind of supporting the developer?

I believe most of us defend it because we understand that if we want Jon to be able to work on this full-time we are going to have to support it with the price he thinks it’s fair. It’s a fortunate coincidence that most other people think it’s fair too

L.

An awesome editor?

As Joel Spolsky said: buy the best tool money can buy. Do you buy the cheapest PC you find?

When did you last go to your local apple store and say: C’mon dude, reduce the price for this mac book pro with retina. I’m a single user!

[quote=“Grant”]If your profession is a trucker or ship captain, then you buy the best seat you can find.
If your profession is a carpenter, then you buy the best tools you can find.
If your profession is a businessman, then you buy the best suits you can find.
If your profession is a chef, then you buy the best knives you can find.

I suppose then that if your profession is in programming, software development, or software engineering, then you buy the best supporting software you can find.

Alright, you win. It surprises me just how many people defend the price rather than argue with it.

As I’m sure it’s been asked before:
What do you get for buying a license, other than the removal of a nagging popup and the peace of mind of supporting the developer?[/quote]

I’d say the price is mostly defended because if your a programming/developer you probably have more insight into what level of effort it takes to make a product like this. We also have a lot of appreciation for the quality of Sublime Text 2. I’d even say we’re thankful because the better the tool’s we have the easier it can be to do our own work.

As far as I can tell getting a license does two things.

1. Remove the popup to buy.
2. Allow you to use nightly builds (This isn’t something most people would want anyway)

It is possible one day the unlicensed version will be limited use, 30 days or something? I’ve never seen Jon mention it though. I think its very charitable allowing people to use ST2 without a time limit.

Well said.

Anyone who is serious about coding (coding is your job) will realize that $60 dollars is a reasonable price for a good editor. I have coworkers who use SlickEdit $300 editor/IDE; granted they get the company to buy it, but seriously $300!

There are many free editors out there if you are just a hobby coder; some are very good. But for a paid editor, $60 dollars is very reasonable, especially if you really like it. And as said before, Jon doesn’t keep you from using it without a license. I do not see what the problem is. I personally paid for a license. I always support good programs that I use, and this one has been especially useful to me.

[quote]If your profession is a trucker or ship captain, then you buy the best seat you can find.
If your profession is a carpenter, then you buy the best tools you can find.
If your profession is a businessman, then you buy the best suits you can find.
If your profession is a chef, then you buy the best knives you can find.

I suppose then that if your profession is in programming, software development, or software engineering, then you buy the best supporting software you can find.[/quote]

Somehow I’m getting the impression that this comment I made was ignored.

<tl;dr>
I am a software engineer. I have been writing code since creating my first website on my 15th birthday now over 15 years ago using nothing but Notepad and the (still running) “Writing HTML” tutorial. My professional career has made me grown accustomed to full blown IDEs like Visual Studio, Eclipse, or NetBeans. The use of some of these tools were dictated by standard practice or technical support. I learned enough VIM shortcuts to know how to do basic editing and exit the program when I get lost.

Recently I started a new chapter in my career and now work in a completely different environment. I was told “just use what you feel comfortable with, as long as it’s compatible and helps you get the job done more efficiently.” Through means I don’t remember, I stumbled across Sublime Text (probably through Lifehacker). To me, it seemed as much of a bare-bones editor as ScITE, but with a growing list of supported plugins hobbled together, unofficially supported by the community. I piled plugin after plugin for little features here and there, only to notice unexpected and undesirable behavior.
</tl;dr>

It wasn’t until recently that I decided to wipe it all clean and start over. After studying more about the core features and putting them into practice, I was past courting and prepared to ask it to marry me. But the thought was still rolling around in my head “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?” (so what if it’s a euphemism, it still works). Lots of other types of projects simply take donations to help fund development, not strict licensing.

That was the purpose of this thread. I completely understand the need to support the developer. But why pay $59 dollars when I can find something that has 2/3 of the features as other editors and can donate what I feel like its worth? What extra goods do I get for trading in my hard-earned cash?

I can happily say that as of moments ago, I am now the proud owner of a license. If it buys Jon an extra month of internet access or 4 cases of beer to help his efforts, then I’ll sleep better at night.

I have absolutely no problems buying a license for software I use. In my student days I might find other means, but now that programming is my career, where I spend about 6 out of 8 hours a day in Sublime doing work much faster and better because of its feature set I’m happy to buy it.

Agreed.