"Open sourcing TextMate is actually something I wanted to do early on, when I experienced the community around bundles," Odgaard said. In a blog post announcing that TextMate 2.0 code is available via GitHub, Odgaard justified his decision by saying that he wanted to give users freedom to "tinker with their environment" and as a "small attempt of countering such trend" by Apple to "limit our freedom."īut Odgaard told Ars the reasons are actually more far-reaching. "I need to continue to work on it, rather than make PR statements." "Of course, many perceive this as me giving up, but for that, I just need to prove them wrong," Odgaard said. But seven months later, even with much progress made, he is no closer to committing to a final release date. Promise was renewed somewhat in late 2011, when Odgaard announced an early alpha was available to registered users. As years passed, TextMate 2.0 became a sort of Duke Nukem Forever of text editors. A major 2.0 was first promised in 2006, and delayed repeatedly. TextMate's design, extensible "bundle" plug-in architecture, and early embrace of OS X technologies made it a favorite text and code editor for developers, writers, and website creators. It's easy to see why skeptics aren't quite ready to believe Odgaard, however. "I haven’t given up on TextMate," Odgaard told Ars. We spoke to Odgaard hoping to clear the air on the matter, though he wasn't very confident that his explanations would "affect public perception of the project." However, he was adamant that his decision to open source TextMate 2.0 was not a sign that he was giving up on the now six-year-long endeavor to build a new version from scratch. Ars readers chimed in via comments, our Open Forum, and Twitter, questioning Odgaard's motives and slamming his current choice of GPLv3 license. Lead TextMate developer Allan Odgaard's decision yesterday to open source the code for the long-awaited version 2.0 was met with a lot of criticism. Odgaard ostensibly instructs his niece on the finer points of software freedom on a recent holiday.
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