+336

Open Source SublimeText

Michael Bleigh 12 years ago updated by 11 years ago 8
I love SublimeText and so do many other developers. We also love building on open source toolchains. Now that TextMate is open source I find myself strongly wishing that Sublime would be so as well.

My guess is that you'd be able to get whatever you wanted from the community (do a Kickstarter or other funding campaign, etc) in return for opening up. Think about it!
+4
Kickstarter or similar isn't a bad idea as it removes the risk by securing the funds first before taking the action of open sourcing. But I guess it all depends on how successful the current closed source business is and is expected to become versus how much the crowd is willing to pay to set the sources free.
+3

I just compiled TM2 and I'm really thinking about moving back again. There are features missing from ST2 that TM2 has (and the opposite too). I'm really thinking about changing efforts to TM2 as it will always be faster (it's C..) and has features I'm really missing from ST2 (like HTML preview).

-19

Huh?  ST2 is written in C++ and is considerably faster than TM2 as far as I can tell. Sure, TM2 has some nice features in the pipeline, but if open sourcing it really will speed up the development only time can tell.

+1

Definitely agree! This would really help speed up development.

+9

An excellent idea and, financially, i don't think it would be a problem. Think about it, apart from funding the project and its developer, what reason do we have for buying the program? You don't get extra features, you don't get support, you just don't get asked to buy the product very so often. Nothing is stopping people from using the trial version indefinitely. If made ST an open-source project and accetepted donations i would not be surprised if he'd get as much money, or more, as he's getting now. Naturally not everyone would donate $60, but since more people can afford a lower amount i don't think that'd be an issue.


Personally i am hesitating to buy ST2 because of its closed nature. Normally it wouldn't be much of a problem but it's been months since we've heard anything about the state of development. The only one who knows where the program is headed and how fast is Jon, and that worries me. On the other hand, if the project were open source (and healthy), i would not hesitate to donate.


And, as Daniel points out, it could speed up development. The community around ST has built an amazing number of plugins, imagine wat they (some of them anyway) cold do with access to the source.

+1 for making ST2 open-source.  The creative gains and code-as-feedback would more than justify putting it up on github or bitbucket.

Absolutely. Current situation has similarities to the position the Linux community was in with Bitkeeper before Git arrived. Worth voting for.