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I wonder why it wasn't this way from the get-go... Oh well, at least I'm actually interested in it now. Can't wait for the Linux version to try it out. Pumped t

I wonder why it wasn't this way from the get-go... Oh well, at least I'm actually interested in it now. Can't wait for the Linux version to try it out. Pumped that they did the right thing and open-sourced it so that it actually has a chance of becoming widespread, and more importantly, of sticking around for longer than a couple years. Good on you, Atom.io devs

SmileyKeith 12y ago
The instructions for building the linux version are in the readme
- pachydermic 12y ago
  Interesting, thanks for the heads up. Last I heard it was OSX only. I may try this when I get home.
- scope 12y ago
  it would a LOT be better if there's a deb package available, you have to do a lot of tweaking to make node work as `node`, since it's named `nodejs` to avoid package name conflict in Linux now that it's open sourced, am sure it'll take like a second for someone to release the deb package
  - BHSPitMonkey 12y ago
    In the meantime, can't you just symlink or alias that problem away?
    - scope 12y ago
      yep i can and i did, still, I'll like it far more if it `just works` without me having to open the terminal and install node, npm, make link of nodejs...
  - anti-thought 12y ago
    That (which can be fixed somewhat easily by [1]), and they rely on version >= v0.10.* which is gross as only v0.6.9 is provided by the default Ubuntu 12.04 repos (which are what is recommended by their README). [1] - `ln -s $(which nodejs) ~/bin/node`
    - pavelrub 12y ago
      Surely you mean /usr/bin/node instead of ~/bin/node...?
      - dkuntz2 12y ago
        Why? If you have ~/bin in your path, wouldn't not cluttering the global bin be preferable?
  - pavelrub 12y ago
    Did anybody manage to get this working on 14.04? I got past the initial node-vs-nodejs problem, then got loads of errors on script/build and I can't go any further.
  - laurencerowe 12y ago
    $ apt-get install nodejs-legacy (or make the symlink yourself.)
  - baldfat 12y ago
    I wish people would just use OpenSuse Build Service! https://build.opensuse.org/ https://build.opensuse.org/ If you build it there you can make it work for Ubuntu, Fedora, Cent, Debian etc... The must under used Linux tool in the world!
    - voltagex_ 12y ago
      OBS really really needs a nicer tutorial and/or an "import from GitHub" button. Getting artifacts into my OBS project (or was it OBS Home?) was pretty tricky
  - wtf_is_up 12y ago
    The Arch AUR has a PKGBUILD up. https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/atom-editor-git https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/atom-editor-git
  - ecnahc515 12y ago
    You emphasize a lot. But all it takes is creating a copy of nodejs from /usr/bin and putting it back with the name node. Not much tweaking at all...
rmrfrmrf 12y ago
At the risk of being too cynical, I suspect that they're open sourcing it because their analytics indicated an adoption rate that wouldn't justify active development. Not sure if this is still the case, but the Atom.io website, at one point, indicated that its price would not be free, but would be competitive with similar products in the market (I'm assuming Sublime Text).
- holman 12y ago
  Definitely not (the beta's been great!). We've been discussing this ad nauseam for years and years, with some good points on both sides. We were looking to make it a partially open, paid app when we launched the beta, but after continuing discussions internally the Atom team decided to go the fully open source route.
  - thedaniel 12y ago
    Yeah, no conspiracy here. Sometimes when people say they're going to have a beta to gather information and make an informed decision, they actually do it.
    - Jormundir 12y ago
      Who's actually using Atom as their main editor? edit: Not meant as a hostile remark, seriously wondering how it's going for people who have stuck with atom. I tried it for 5 minutes, but didn't give it a real commitment.
      - andreis1 12y ago
        Not main, but I stopped using ST for it.
        bpicolo 12y ago
        I won't even give it a chance over ST until I can resize panes, unfortunately. How that isn't a feature is beyond me.
oddevan 12y ago
> I wonder why it wasn't this way from the get-go As I saw it, GitHub was trying to see if it could become a business. Developers will pay decent money (as in "desktop software" money, not "mobile app" money) for a quality text editor. I wouldn't have blamed them for going commercial, but I'm happy to see them releasing this to the community. :)
- laureny 12y ago
  Developers will pay decent money for a "code" editor (an IDE), not a "text" editor. Text editors are dime a dozen and in that space, you are competing with much more than tools that are geared just toward developers.
  - kemayo 12y ago
    It doesn't have to be a full IDE. Sublime Text and Textmate before it have both been very successful while charging a respectable fee. Maybe the slightly-snarky lesson here is "developers will pay decent money for a text editor... on OSX".
    - rok3 12y ago
      I've paid for Sublime and I run mostly Arch Linux systems. Developers will pay decent money for any editor that helps them create better code (and thus more money). :-P
      - danford 12y ago
        Any particular reason you chose sublime over Vim?
        unfamiliar 12y ago
        I can't speak for the other poster, but in my case gentler learning curve (I've been using vim for about 10 years and I still don't know 10% of what it can do), smooth scrolling, a real GUI (vim's text menus can be pretty confusing at times), and the features vim didn't have at the time like multiple cursors, command palette and go to anything. Why do I keep using it? Because generally new functionality requires about 2 minutes of readme.md and then it is working, rather than half an hour of hacking with vim config files.
d0m 12y ago
Also, releasing something open-source isn't as straightforward as it may seem unless you've started that way. Think about all the internal libraries that developers might have used or all the security or licensing aspect of it. There are lots of stuff I would love to release open-source but I just don't have the time and I'm too much of a perfectionist anyway.
ecnahc515 12y ago
You can build the Linux version right now. Same for Windows.
Fasebook 12y ago
Because JavaScript is a joke and no serious company embraces it.
rhubarbquid 12y ago
I assumed they wanted to limit the amount of feedback/bug reports they got to a level they could usefully cope with. Any new release is potentially going to have tons of issues with real world situations that never happened for developers or in QA. Anything released by GitHub is going to get a lot of attention. By limiting the number of initial users, they can get some real world testing and not get millions of duplicate bug reports.

SmileyKeith 12y ago

The instructions for building the linux version are in the readme

pachydermic 12y ago
Interesting, thanks for the heads up. Last I heard it was OSX only. I may try this when I get home.
scope 12y ago
it would a LOT be better if there's a deb package available, you have to do a lot of tweaking to make node work as `node`, since it's named `nodejs` to avoid package name conflict in Linux now that it's open sourced, am sure it'll take like a second for someone to release the deb package
- BHSPitMonkey 12y ago
  In the meantime, can't you just symlink or alias that problem away?
  - scope 12y ago
    yep i can and i did, still, I'll like it far more if it `just works` without me having to open the terminal and install node, npm, make link of nodejs...
- anti-thought 12y ago
  That (which can be fixed somewhat easily by [1]), and they rely on version >= v0.10.* which is gross as only v0.6.9 is provided by the default Ubuntu 12.04 repos (which are what is recommended by their README). [1] - `ln -s $(which nodejs) ~/bin/node`
  - pavelrub 12y ago
    Surely you mean /usr/bin/node instead of ~/bin/node...?
    - dkuntz2 12y ago
      Why? If you have ~/bin in your path, wouldn't not cluttering the global bin be preferable?
- pavelrub 12y ago
  Did anybody manage to get this working on 14.04? I got past the initial node-vs-nodejs problem, then got loads of errors on script/build and I can't go any further.
- laurencerowe 12y ago
  $ apt-get install nodejs-legacy (or make the symlink yourself.)
- baldfat 12y ago
  I wish people would just use OpenSuse Build Service! https://build.opensuse.org/ https://build.opensuse.org/ If you build it there you can make it work for Ubuntu, Fedora, Cent, Debian etc... The must under used Linux tool in the world!
  - voltagex_ 12y ago
    OBS really really needs a nicer tutorial and/or an "import from GitHub" button. Getting artifacts into my OBS project (or was it OBS Home?) was pretty tricky
- wtf_is_up 12y ago
  The Arch AUR has a PKGBUILD up. https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/atom-editor-git https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/atom-editor-git
- ecnahc515 12y ago
  You emphasize a lot. But all it takes is creating a copy of nodejs from /usr/bin and putting it back with the name node. Not much tweaking at all...

rmrfrmrf 12y ago

At the risk of being too cynical, I suspect that they're open sourcing it because their analytics indicated an adoption rate that wouldn't justify active development. Not sure if this is still the case, but the Atom.io website, at one point, indicated that its price would not be free, but would be competitive with similar products in the market (I'm assuming Sublime Text).

holman 12y ago
Definitely not (the beta's been great!). We've been discussing this ad nauseam for years and years, with some good points on both sides. We were looking to make it a partially open, paid app when we launched the beta, but after continuing discussions internally the Atom team decided to go the fully open source route.
- thedaniel 12y ago
  Yeah, no conspiracy here. Sometimes when people say they're going to have a beta to gather information and make an informed decision, they actually do it.
  - Jormundir 12y ago
    Who's actually using Atom as their main editor? edit: Not meant as a hostile remark, seriously wondering how it's going for people who have stuck with atom. I tried it for 5 minutes, but didn't give it a real commitment.
    - andreis1 12y ago
      Not main, but I stopped using ST for it.
      - bpicolo 12y ago
        I won't even give it a chance over ST until I can resize panes, unfortunately. How that isn't a feature is beyond me.

oddevan 12y ago

> I wonder why it wasn't this way from the get-go As I saw it, GitHub was trying to see if it could become a business. Developers will pay decent money (as in "desktop software" money, not "mobile app" money) for a quality text editor. I wouldn't have blamed them for going commercial, but I'm happy to see them releasing this to the community. :)

laureny 12y ago
Developers will pay decent money for a "code" editor (an IDE), not a "text" editor. Text editors are dime a dozen and in that space, you are competing with much more than tools that are geared just toward developers.
- kemayo 12y ago
  It doesn't have to be a full IDE. Sublime Text and Textmate before it have both been very successful while charging a respectable fee. Maybe the slightly-snarky lesson here is "developers will pay decent money for a text editor... on OSX".
  - rok3 12y ago
    I've paid for Sublime and I run mostly Arch Linux systems. Developers will pay decent money for any editor that helps them create better code (and thus more money). :-P
    - danford 12y ago
      Any particular reason you chose sublime over Vim?
      - unfamiliar 12y ago
        I can't speak for the other poster, but in my case gentler learning curve (I've been using vim for about 10 years and I still don't know 10% of what it can do), smooth scrolling, a real GUI (vim's text menus can be pretty confusing at times), and the features vim didn't have at the time like multiple cursors, command palette and go to anything. Why do I keep using it? Because generally new functionality requires about 2 minutes of readme.md and then it is working, rather than half an hour of hacking with vim config files.

d0m 12y ago

Also, releasing something open-source isn't as straightforward as it may seem unless you've started that way. Think about all the internal libraries that developers might have used or all the security or licensing aspect of it. There are lots of stuff I would love to release open-source but I just don't have the time and I'm too much of a perfectionist anyway.

ecnahc515 12y ago

You can build the Linux version right now. Same for Windows.

Fasebook 12y ago

Because JavaScript is a joke and no serious company embraces it.

rhubarbquid 12y ago

I assumed they wanted to limit the amount of feedback/bug reports they got to a level they could usefully cope with. Any new release is potentially going to have tons of issues with real world situations that never happened for developers or in QA. Anything released by GitHub is going to get a lot of attention. By limiting the number of initial users, they can get some real world testing and not get millions of duplicate bug reports.