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VSCodium – An Open Source Visual Studio Code Without Trackers

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Re: VSCodium – An Open Source Visual Studio Code Without Trackers

#241

Post by writepub »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #184
writepub wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a clear case of people exploiting and perpetrating FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt), riding on Microsoft's historic reputation as not being trustworthy, and turning it to their private benefit. If you have trust issues with Microsoft, you shouldn't be using software authored by them, as software can have backdoors and security issues hiding in plain sight (heart bleed bug, for instance). Atom has/had the exa…

You do realize VSCode's built on top of things like Electron, Node, V8 etc. It's a lot of work done by other people to enable MS to build VSCode in this way. So why is it problematic now for other people to build on top of what Microsoft added?

I hope you see that writing millions of lines of original source code on top of (Election, node, v8,..) and investing tens of engineers at millions per year in cost, to create VSCode is not equivalent to disabling telemetry and slapping a non Microsoft label on it.

There's absolutely zero problems with people using OSS as intended. But for me personally, as I stated in the original parent comment, value obtained by persisting with Microsoft's VSCode, despite telemetry, is worth continuing to use it, as against an entity's fork whose USP is furthering unfounded FUD.

Re: VSCodium – An Open Source Visual Studio Code Without Trackers

#242

Post by aarbor989 »

randomsearch wrote: post #193
userbinator wrote: post #117

There's already a comment here, and I've also personally experienced just from talking with others offline, that a lot of people don't even know VSCode had telemetry, despite it mentioned several times in the product itself and its documentation. They (and remember, these people are supposedly developers ) either ignored it, or just didn't read the docs. I guess a big WARNING banner might scare users away, but it's s…

Off topic but from a podcast I was listening to recently: your most valuable asset is your team, not your code. This is evidenced by exits - without the team the codebase ain’t worth much.

My old CTO used to say “I don’t care if they have the source code, let them try and actually run the damn thing”

Re: VSCodium – An Open Source Visual Studio Code Without Trackers

#243

Post by EForEndeavour »

carlmr wrote: post #198
jaredklewis wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be disturbing, but it is entirely understandable that no one reads the EULA. If I read all the terms and policies for every piece of software and site I use, I would be doing that full time. Companies have basically DoS attacked the public by attaching pages of legalese to anything and everything.

>Companies have basically DoS attacked the public by attaching pages of legalese to anything and everything. It's DDoS. You could read one EULA, but there are way too many, it's a distributed attack.

A DDoS is by definition also a DoS, so the OP's statement stands just fine on its own.

Re: VSCodium – An Open Source Visual Studio Code Without Trackers

#244

Post by AsyncAwait »

writepub wrote: post #241
AsyncAwait wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize VSCode's built on top of things like Electron, Node, V8 etc. It's a lot of work done by other people to enable MS to build VSCode in this way. So why is it problematic now for other people to build on top of what Microsoft added?

I hope you see that writing millions of lines of original source code on top of (Election, node, v8,..) and investing tens of engineers at millions per year in cost, to create VSCode is not equivalent to disabling telemetry and slapping a non Microsoft label on it. There's absolutely zero problems with people using OSS as intended. But for me personally, as I stated in the original parent comment, value obtained by p…

They're not trying to hide/deny it's Microsoft's VSCode. It's called VSCodium, inspired by Google Chrome/Chromium, after all. As for it being FUD, being concerned over OPT-OUT telemetry is for many not FUD, but to each their own.

Re: VSCodium – An Open Source Visual Studio Code Without Trackers

#245

Post by _bear »

bartread wrote: post #219

This is nice and all but, from my perspective, the biggest issue with VSCode isn't the telemetry but the battery drain. Even though I prefer VSCode to Sublime the negative effect on battery life, particularly for sizeable projects, forced me back to Sublime for most use cases.

It uses Electron.. which is packaged Chromium. That's the hog.

Re: VSCodium – An Open Source Visual Studio Code Without Trackers

#246

Post by colordrops »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #57
jlawson wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Slippery slope" is not a fallacy. Life is full of slippery slopes in terms of behavior.

The fallacy is to assume, without evidence, that the slope is slippery. There are plenty of slopes that aren't. Probably most, just you don't think about those because you know they aren't slippery already. For example, I slept in 'til 8:30 today. OMG, a slippery slope. Next thing you know, I'll be sleeping until 3PM. Til midnight! I will never wake up again. But as it happens, sleeping in isn't a slippery slope. I d…

That's the "hasty counterexample" fallacy.

Re: VSCodium – An Open Source Visual Studio Code Without Trackers

#247

Post by prepend »

nurettin wrote: post #131
prepend wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tracking should always be opt-in, not opt-out. I base this on expected user preference and trying to optimize for user happiness and functionality. I don’t think this is as true for non-OSS software where the purpose is likely more toward revenue generation than community and user functionality.

What is the crucial difference between a popup saying "would you like to opt in?" and popup saying "would you like to opt out?"

There’s a good book called Nudge by Richard Thaler (and someone else I can’t remember) where he goes into great detail on the default decision.

Tl;dr; people usually accept the default so your prompts yield very different results.

Re: VSCodium – An Open Source Visual Studio Code Without Trackers

#248

Post by pavanagrawal123 »

mncharity wrote: post #240

VSCode seems rather monolithic. Skimming it briefly, there seems code which might be usefully repackaged as npm packages for service elsewhere. (I didn't check whether npm packages exist providing similar functionality.) This can certainly be the right call for a project. But maybe it's an untapped opportunity for the broader community? Has anyone looked at running a tracking fork, say mechanically massaging vscode i…

Check out theia

Re: VSCodium – An Open Source Visual Studio Code Without Trackers

#249

Post by johncolanduoni »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #86
johncolanduoni wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s proof of existence of slippery slopes, not of prevelance of hypothetical slippery slopes being realized.

We’re talking about data collection and usage, not possibilities in the universe.

Exactly, which is why I'd be more interested in concrete commonalities of slippery slopes that were actually realized, and not just a general "history has plenty of slippery slopes".

Re: VSCodium – An Open Source Visual Studio Code Without Trackers

#250

Post by mncharity »

pavanagrawal123 wrote: post #248
mncharity wrote: post #240

VSCode seems rather monolithic. Skimming it briefly, there seems code which might be usefully repackaged as npm packages for service elsewhere. (I didn't check whether npm packages exist providing similar functionality.) This can certainly be the right call for a project. But maybe it's an untapped opportunity for the broader community? Has anyone looked at running a tracking fork, say mechanically massaging vscode i…

Check out theia

Thanks... https://github.com/theia-ide/theia
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