Quite a lot of people (myself including) just use v3 regardless.
I honestly think Jon Skinner could just release the next version as 3.0 and few people would mind since most people treat the current beta as an RC anyway.
If ST 2 is any indication, it'll be in beta for a while longer, then 4.0 beta will start (paid upgrade) and 3 will no longer be developed. It's a bit of a silly way to monetize. I haven't actually gotten a license for 3 because of that, I'd rather not pay for beta software or for software that I know will hardly be maintained once out of beta.
I'm pretty sure current license keys work for both 2 and 3. Although it's not doc'd clearly, which does not inspire confidence. But my existing license key for 2 worked for 3 beta, and the FAQ[1] says "A license is valid for Sublime Text 3, and includes all point updates, as well as access to prior versions (e.g., Sublime Text 2). Future major versions, such as Sublime Text 4, will be a paid upgrade."
But if you already have a license key for 2, there's no risk, download 3 and see if it accepts your existing license key -- I think it might.
The way I understand it, is that they are currently (and for quite a while now) not selling Sublime 2 licenses, but only Sublime 3 licenses, which are backward compatible with Sublime 2.
If you have a Sublime 2 license, you will have to pay to upgrade to 3 once it is out.
>I haven't actually gotten a license for 3 because of that, I'd rather not pay for beta software or for software that I know will hardly be maintained once out of beta.
Those names are arbitrary BS.
ST3 hasn't felt like "beta" software for 2+ years.
If he had released it as ST3 2-3 years ago, nothing would have changed. It's been release quality for ages.
It seems to me that Sublime lost a lot of community support due to the very long development time of version 3.