Yes, you can use the compiled _ssl modules and the code from line 11-31 of SFTP.py for an open source package.

If you install my SFTP package and look at the SFTP.py in the package folder, you can find some loader code to try loading three different variants of the ssl module. In the lib folder there are three different versions of the _ssl module compiled against different versions of openssl, both for 32bit and 64bit architectures.

From my experience, this seems to work with all modern linux installs.

I've been waiting on Jon for quite a while to add a side bar API so that I can present remote files in a more sane way. Unfortunately it seems this is somewhat of a low priority for him.

I've done a bunch of development and testing, and my package manager called Package Control (http://wbond.net/sublime_packages/package_control) is ready for general use. Feel free to use GitHub issues (https://github.com/wbond/sublime_package_control/issues) when you run into bugs or if you have ideas.