> Sublime Text license keys are no longer tied to a single major version, instead they are now valid for all updates within 3 years of purchase. After that, you will still have full access to every version of Sublime Text released within the 3 year window.
Life is expensive and getting more expensive every day. The median home price is twice as expensive as when sublime released for $70 in 2008. Everything from a car to a loaf of bread is more expensive and your developer needs pay for housing and loaves of bread too. As it stands the new permanent price of 99 is only 41% higher than in 2008.
Any chance you can get your employer (if you have one) to buy you a license? Some employers will help out their staff by buying licenses for IDEs, or textbooks or stuff like that.
It's worth noting that business licenses work a little differently than personal licenses:
> Business licenses are sold on an annual tiered subscription basis, at $65/seat/year for the first 10 seats, $60/seat/year for seats 11-25, $55/seat/year for seats 26-50, and $50/seat/year for any further seats.
TBH, the rest of the world will just pirate, and if they make a good income eventually that is more the international standard, they can buy with their own cash. I don't think sublime has top of the line DRM.
I live in India, and I find the price a bit too high. But that does not mean I will pirate the app. I will use other free alternatives until I can afford the program I want to use. So, asking Sublime to reduce the price to cater to people like me is a valid request, IMO.
Sublime can be downloaded for free though. It just bugs you every few days asking if you would mind paying. That’s my situation now. I’d love to through some cash their way since it’s a great product, but it’s just a bit too steep.
It's not really much though... Software engineers make that in an hour or two, that's reasonable price for 3 years of updates of the primary tool... And it's a business expense. And as the sibling comment says, a game costs about the same.
It depende on the country. In my country (Brazil, where minimum wage is less than US$ 1/hour) a software developer earns about 1/4 or 1/5 (or less) compared to US salaries for a similar job.
Spotify, Netflix and YouTube Premium here are much cheaper than in US.
I mean contractors - my bad, I should've been more clear... I'm used to everyone being a contractor. Employees should get license from employers. Is contracting rate also that low in Brazil?
To be fair in most of the developed world it is more like 4-6 and there is always Emacs, Vim, Atom, Code for free. An embarrassment of riches for nothing.
Okay then, five or eight hours, or a week.. for 3 years of updates - still peanuts considering that this is programmer's primary tool and business expense deductible from tax base.
I agree with this very much. Both Sublime Text and Sublime Merge are quite cost prohibitive, particularly so for individual users. I've mentioned this here and elsewhere before and often others will attempt to deflect this with getting an employer to cover it or that it isn't much for a developer, but that only holds true for a smaller subset than they realize.
One can buy a copy of Windows 10, an entire operating system, for about the same price (or often considerably less!)
Тhere is a story about a Jewish tailor whom it took 1 month to sew the pants. So the customers tells him Look it took god 7 days to build the world and you were making pants for a month... And the tailor answers Yes, but look at this world and now look at these pants...
Same here.
It always sucks to see whenever the comparison is made between pricing offered by a small developer team vs. an enterprise with hundreds of thousands. Microsoft could likely sell Windows for free and still profit from the ecosystem network effects and upsells of its cloud offerings.
Mostly, but allowing access during the window on an enduring basis is generally not typical of subscription models.
This is more like dated entitlement than subscription.
Most subscriptions have much stronger pressure to renew, including inability to install or download outside subscription period, version limits, software quits working, and, and, and...
I think this implies that after 3 year, you can keep using whatever is the last version you were using. It's basically license to get what you have right + any versions in the next 3 year.
JetBrains also has a similar license for yearly subscriptions, where you can keep using whatever version was supported at the end of the license.
> whatever version was supported at the end of the license
No. The version you will perpetually have access to is the last version released one year before the expiry of your license. So if you get a one-year license and don't renew it, you only retain access to the version you first bought, not any new ones released during the year.
It's not broken. You're basically buying that version of the software with some benefits for a year; and they make it nice and easy to get the next version with benefits. If you decide to quit, you leave with exactly what you already paid for in the first place. Sure, it's not as nice as the Sublime Text model, but it's a fair, decent, and non-broken model.
In contrast, subscription software expects you to pay in perpetuity so they can take risks with your money instead of their own on new versions and features. Generally nothing is guaranteed to you at all, only access to whatever version of the software is current. No guaranteed support, upgrade times, or anything. And when you leave, you get nothing at all.
They already did... somehow. iirc their original plan was that you'll lose your license after you stop paying. But due to a big backlash against that, they changed it in a way that you can keep the license for product available 1 year before you stop paying.
You get a license and access to all updates released for duration. But if your license is not renewed at the end, you lose access to updates in the year/time since you bought the license.
You still keep original version at the time you purchased license for as long as you want, though.
I'm fairly certain the Jetbrains subscription model is:
(Edit, I had to look it up, the exact wording is:) "You will receive perpetual fallback licenses for every version you’ve paid 12 consecutive months for.
Other notably nice app/programs that uses this or similar sane, friendly models including Sublime Text 4 and Jetbrains products:
- Agenda (Mac, iOS) Planner/journal
- Manic Time time tracker (Windows, maybe Mac). This can easily save you many hours a month or help you increase billing.
feel free to add more examples here, we should make some positive noise about companies that don't abuse their customers.
(Please don't misunderstand me: Open source is often even lovlier but there are plenty of lists of Free/Open source software.)
Subscription models like Office365, Creative Cloud, etc., lock you out of the software version you’re already using when the subscription expires. In this approach, you can continue to use that version just fine. (And even still upgrade, if you’re yet not on the newest version your license extends to.)
Normal subscription models make you lose access to the software if you stop paying. With Sublime Text's new license model you retain full access except to updates released after the 3 year period has lapsed.
Not really. Subscription means that the thing stops working once you stop paying. This is a purchase with included maintenance subscription, a bit different (and much better).
Not really since you don’t lose access to prior versions. It’s more like buying the old Photoshop CDs but then getting three years of updates with that purchase.
That is a good model, but I'm a little confused about the transition. My license from 2015 obviously doesn't include ST4, but does it still include all versions of ST3 since it was purchased before this change? Or was it retroactively updated to only capture ST3 versions released during that 3-year window?
Why's that? It depends how frequently a major release happens. If it stays at "4.x" for 5 years, I'd way rather have the "tied to a single major version" license :)
That's the problem, though. The old model gives Sublime weird incentives, where they would be better off bumping major version more often to force people to upgrade. Or push features back until next major. And if they don't do, they are basically working for free for a few years.
That's not what OP quoted though -- the new licensing model says you get all updates for 3 years (regardless of version number).
So with the new license model, let's say v4.7 gets released at 3 years and 1 day, you won't get the v4.7 update. Whereas if the license was tied to major version, you would get 4.7 and onward, until the dev decides to call it 5.x
I really love this model.