[wolco]

You can use Sublime Text 2 forever.

https://www.sublimetext.com/2

Sublime Text 2 may be downloaded and evaluated for free, however a license must be purchased for continued use. There is currently no enforced time limit for the evaluation.

[oarsinsync]

You can use use it forever without a license, but you shouldn't.

There are lots of honour based / social contracts that essentially function because enough of us abide by them. If enough people do not, they go away.

Or as the saying goes, "this is why we can't have nice things."

[wolco]

So someone should uninstall the program and download a true open source product like vscode. Because using it by the terms listed on the download page is breaking a social contract. If we don't no one will offer a free editor again?

- There is a reason they offered a free unlimited trial. They were unknown and by offering it for free they increased popularity, increased business / education licenses sold. By me switching to another editor I stop telling people I use that editor my company stops purchasing that license. We all lose. Nevermind version 3 doesn't have that wording, so version 2 can be seen as a gateway product to onboard developers into version 3.

- Even though vscode is open source by supporting that editor you are supporting big microsoft over a much smaller company. Long term this hurts small developers more. I think open source can hurt small players when used by larger corps trying to get you to buy into there paid ecosystem.

[vpEfljFL]

VSCode is not "true open source product". It's event not open source. It's "open core", i.e. proprietary version of "code" project with additional proprietary components: telemetry, special configuration and so on.