[rdebeasi]

Sublime Text isn't free; it's sold on the honor system:

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

The developer could try to enforce this rule by building in DRM or by threatening legal action, but those things would make for a pretty crappy user experience. Instead, the author chose to do the right thing by users and provide an evaluation version with no restrictions.

Legally and technically, you can certainly use Sublime Text without paying for it. To me, though, using Sublime Text for your everyday work without paying for it is the ethical equivalent of using a cracked version of Photoshop.

[Lambdanaut]

Are you sure it's the honor system? It seems to me more like a clever move to disseminate the software so that people are more likely to pay, particularly since he explicitly defines "continued use" as being whatever timeframe the user wants.

Adobe's Photoshop license doesn't do anything like this. If you crack it, you're breaking the rules.

I think it's a gray area, but it's undeniably true that paying for a license is a respectful thing to do at the very least.

[jacalata]

Well, there's no enforcement aside from your own conscience (or peer pressure, if that applies to you) so yes, it's an honor system. That doesn't stop it from also being a marketing move.

[JeremyMorgan]

Yeah, I think the system likely works well. It didn't take me very long while using it until I decided I should support the developer, if anything to keep it alive.