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The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

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Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#31

Post by nyanpasu64 »

sudhirj wrote: post #3

Yes and no. The complaint is that some widely used extensions are proprietary. If these extensions require MS servers, then they have every reason to be. Even if they don't, there's nothing wrong with a company holding back some stuff they consider strategic, they're not obligated to release them. If we're debating the OSS credentials of VSCode, it'll need to be based on the code already released (which makes it a pr…

Remote doesn't use Microsoft servers, it uses your servers. C# debugging doesn't use Microsoft servers. C++ debugging doesn't use Microsoft servers. Microsoft only broke these extensions on VSCodium to cripple open-source builds.

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#33

Post by GordonS »

CiTyBear wrote: post #14
sudhirj wrote: post #3

Yes and no. The complaint is that some widely used extensions are proprietary. If these extensions require MS servers, then they have every reason to be. Even if they don't, there's nothing wrong with a company holding back some stuff they consider strategic, they're not obligated to release them. If we're debating the OSS credentials of VSCode, it'll need to be based on the code already released (which makes it a pr…

I don't think it says "Software not open-source is bad". But more something like "It is marketed as open source but it is not". Developers should be aware that VSCode is not as open source as it claims it is. In my circles, developers could swear VSCode is fully open source without even knowing VSCodium. If people were more aware about this, they might think twice before using VSCode for everything and getting lock-i…

I know full well about VSCodium, but choose not to use it. For all intents and purposes, VSCode is open source - the source code it freely avaibale on github under an MIT license. AFAIK only the installer and some extensions are not open source - that plainly doesn't mean VSCode itself isn't open source.

VSCode is a fantastic tool, and I'd prefer to use it directly from Microsoft. I am aware that there is telemetry, and as someone conscious of privacy concerns I've looked at what telemetry is sent - I'm satisfied it's anonymised sufficiently and benign enough not to affect my privacy. If the VSCode team really find this data useful, then I'm happy to provide it and help improve VSCode.

I do however think that telemetry in VSCode should be opt-in rather than opt-out.

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#34

Post by AshamedCaptain »

And even the C++ intellicode/parser extension is proprietary.

But no, last time this was mentioned, it was downvoted to oblivion. "But, you see, they put the intellicode C++ extension in Github, so it must be opensource!"

Wrong. They are just using Github to distribute binaries. If you download the vsix file from either github or the vscode extension repos, you will find a 10MB binary called cpptools that was not there in the source tarball. The extension does nothing without it.

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#35

Post by benbristow »

nix23 wrote: post #30
strombofulous wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are they closed source? Aren't they javascript?

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html

You can look at the source code on GitHub here and compile it yourself if you want...

https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/tree/master/src

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#36

Post by zxter »

This feels like free to play but pay to win kind of games, or cheap base game to release to poison, countless expensive DLCs. But instead of money, it is freedom.

Just because of this I prefer open source projects from smaller developers that are built with labor of love, instead of from big corporate businesses that will eventually try to use you for any kind of profit.

Since topic is similar, I would like to recommend onivim 2 [0] for who prefer vi bindings. It is almost out of alpha and in pretty usable stage. Currently they are integrating open-vsx. Project is open source with dual license and it is currently very cheap for who wants to support, or free to build from source to try.

[0] https://www.onivim.io/

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#37

Post by skohan »

CiTyBear wrote: post #14
sudhirj wrote: post #3

Yes and no. The complaint is that some widely used extensions are proprietary. If these extensions require MS servers, then they have every reason to be. Even if they don't, there's nothing wrong with a company holding back some stuff they consider strategic, they're not obligated to release them. If we're debating the OSS credentials of VSCode, it'll need to be based on the code already released (which makes it a pr…

I don't think it says "Software not open-source is bad". But more something like "It is marketed as open source but it is not". Developers should be aware that VSCode is not as open source as it claims it is. In my circles, developers could swear VSCode is fully open source without even knowing VSCodium. If people were more aware about this, they might think twice before using VSCode for everything and getting lock-i…

Yes this is exactly the risk: developers become dependent on the VSCode extension ecosystem, while thinking they are safely using only FOSS tools.

This is the kind of double-speak which lets MS have the best of both worlds. From a marketing/developer relations perspective, developers think they are using open-source tools. But in actuality, developers are investing in workflows where MS is a critical link in the chain.

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#38

Post by [deleted] »

sudhirj wrote: post #3

Yes and no. The complaint is that some widely used extensions are proprietary. If these extensions require MS servers, then they have every reason to be. Even if they don't, there's nothing wrong with a company holding back some stuff they consider strategic, they're not obligated to release them. If we're debating the OSS credentials of VSCode, it'll need to be based on the code already released (which makes it a pr…

[deleted]

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#40

Post by nudpiedo »

I do not understand people with allergy to non OSS.

Compare that to any google service which barely releases the clients as open source, and the clients usually are so complex that may need quite long time to get any professional developer productive in such complex code bases. Also being tied to a controlled protocol, set of libraries, cloud infrastructure which does actually keep your data is in fact the actual evil that Free Software wanted to save us.

At the end it is just corporations fighting for their users and giving free candy (OSS Clients) so they get some traction. I do not expect that to change and I do not thing companies should either keep their servers OSS just for the sake of keeping OSS folks happy.

I am more concerned about law compliance and companies respecting my rights, and providing good user support when necessary. Also the next freedom battle should be to accept any system to plug in to any other "cloud" provider service (as much as we do with electricity, phone, etc) and in this regard Microsoft is way ahead of Google and Apple yet still far from an utopian free interexchangeable stack.

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