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.

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."

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.

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.

To give them benefit of the doubt, they may have already paid for it, and as it's a one time fee not included it in their monthly costs.

It has a yearly subscription fees if the license is bought for use in a business

From the FAQ

Using a Personal License at Work As licenses are per-user, you're welcome to use your license key on all computers where you are the primary user, including at work.

Another piece of fluff software reinventing the wheel for profit. I can have most of those features with a decent .nanorc config.

Well, kind of (at least last time I used it, which was Sublime Text 2). They say it's an evaluation but there is no time-limit, just an annoying popup every now and then (or on start? Can't remember) but it's effectively free if you're OK with that.

I mean, basically all desktop software is free if you’re okay with violating the license. Not something I’d advise if you’re trying to run a business.

Not at all because usually you have to circumvent some protection they have, and in that case the intent is to continue using the software in a way they didn't intend and probably breaking some agreement you made when installing/downloading.

In the Sublime Text case, they explicitly give you unlimited time to trial the software and buy it if you get value from it (which, if you do, please buy it [and same with other software] so we can make the world go around). Their license seems to explicitly say that you can evaluate it until you either stop using it or buy it, without breaking any agreement.

Edit: I should clarify more about my own position about it before it gets taken with the wrong idea in mind. I do agree that if you do continuously use Sublime Text (or other software with similar license/trials) and get value from it, you should absolutely buy it to support the developers. Continuing to use beyond that would not be the ethical thing to do. But it does seem like the developers of Sublime Text are confident enough that people who can afford it and gets value from it, will eventually purchase a license. Which, since the company still exists, seems to work out, and that's great to see.

Parent is correct. But business would want to buy a licease for support more than fear of legal threat or Oracle shakedown.

https://www.sublimetext.com/2

Support for a text editor?