I finally purchased a Sublime Text license

Sublime Text is my text editor of choice. Every word I write on my computer, I write in Sublime Text. Every note, every blog post, every forum submission. When I code? I do it in Sublime Text. It is likely the program I spend most time with on my computer.

This has been the case for two years now. And yet, it shames me to say, until the other day I had never paid a dime for this magnificent piece of software that is the engine my of my digital life.

Now, you're probably thinking that free and open source software is nothing unusual. People use free software all the time, never paying or contributing. And that's true. But Sublime Text isn't actually open source. It is proprietary software that requires a license. Sublime just doesn't enforce it. Instead, they rely on an honour system of sorts. From the Sublime Text buy page:

Sublime Text may be downloaded and evaluated for free, however a license must be purchased for continued use.

The free download comes without any restrictions. You get the complete program with all all features, and there are no time restrictions. The only visible difference compared to a licensed version is a small, but rare pop-up reminding you to acquire a license if you want to continue using the program.

A software license based on mutual trust? How refreshing, I thought when discovering it for the first time.

Then I immediately went and completely abused that trust for two years, never purchasing a license and displaying why this is likely not a viable business model.

I am why we can't have good things.

It's not that I set out to abuse this trust. Every time the reminder popped up I was like "ah, yeah, I really need to get around to purchasing a license" before seeing the price and thinking that it would have to wait another month, or maybe two. At $99 USD, the license is not an insignificant outlay for a poor cheapskate like myself. Nevertheless, it was a poor excuse. In the years since I started using it, I've had countless less meaningful expenditures of similar size.

The other day, however, I finally got around to it. I purchased a license and gave myself the Christmas gift of being able to use Sublime Text for all my writing and coding with a clear conscience.

Better late than never?