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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

#41

Post by est31 »

strombofulous wrote: post #26
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…

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

The source code on Github is MIT licensed, but when you download VS code from the Microsoft website, it will present you with a non MIT EULA [0] that violates the four freedoms in multiple ways. So it's proprietary.

[0]: https://code.visualstudio.com/license?lang=en

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#42

Post by skohan »

ponker wrote: post #21
skohan wrote: post #7

I can be counted as one of the skeptics of MS's open-source efforts. It just seems to me that MS's history and recent investment in open-source puts us in a quantum state between two possibilities: 1. MS has changed their ways, and has become an altruist organization which just wants to give developers things of value for free so they might hopefully choose Azure when they decide what cloud provider to run on. 2. MS…

I think it's 3. MS realized that it's not as powerful as it was in the 80s and 90s because Apple and Google took over a huge portion of the computing market with mobile. So they have "changed their ways," not because of any altruism but because they have to change their ways to compete from a position that, while enviably strong, is also a laggard especially on the consumer and developer side of the business.

The problem with that is because if the only reason they changed their ways is because they lost the competitive advantage, what confidence should you have that they won't change back if they regain market-share?

It doesn't make me feel great about them owning the platform where almost all open source software is hosted, and one of the most dominant tools for writing code.

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#43

Post by pjmlp »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #18
pjmlp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft is not a charity, they also need to get money.

And they wouldn't get money if they licensed these extensions differently?

For the same reasons that not all compilers built on top of LLVM are 100% open source, monetization strategies for other products.

In this case, selling Azure based services on Microsoft infrastructure.

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#44

Post by pjmlp »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #16
toadi wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, where is the companies money coming from ?

Selling windows and office, generally. The licensing of these extensions is mostly irrelevant to their plan and the reason they spend money on this development.

These extensions are gateways into selling Microsoft infrastructure services.

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#45

Post by recrof »

fergie wrote: post #19

If, as the author says, live collaboration is important, then its probably much better to rely on GNU screen or similar. It follows therefore that you should then be using an editor that can run inside of a terminal such as Vi or Emacs. Also, the revelation that Visual Studio Code is not in fact as open source-y as it could be should come as a surprise to nobody

Is android not considered opensource enough because it uses google play services?

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#46

Post by nudpiedo »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #18
pjmlp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft is not a charity, they also need to get money.

And they wouldn't get money if they licensed these extensions differently?

Can't they keep this marketing strategy in order to keep their platform competitive or whatever strategic plan they follow?

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#47

Post by skohan »

sjellis wrote: post #23
skohan wrote: post #7

I can be counted as one of the skeptics of MS's open-source efforts. It just seems to me that MS's history and recent investment in open-source puts us in a quantum state between two possibilities: 1. MS has changed their ways, and has become an altruist organization which just wants to give developers things of value for free so they might hopefully choose Azure when they decide what cloud provider to run on. 2. MS…

I would say that it can be both. Large organizations like Microsoft have so many different people and teams that there isn't necessarily a group-think. On the contrary, different teams will have different priorities, and keeping people aligned is a really hard job. The thing that bothers me about Visual Studio Code is that does conform to the general Microsoft rule of enabling telemetry by default. IMO, this is not g…

I would argue that it's not about intent. The most reliable way to predict the behavior of a corporation is to expect them to take the action which will optimally help their bottom line.

So for instance, the team building VSCode might be the most altruistic FOSS diehards on the planet, but that doesn't matter if the people managing them see an opportunity to leverage their work to profit MS at the expense of developers.

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#48

Post by blackoil »

mschuster91 wrote: post #20
sjellis wrote: post #6

I really like VS Code, but am definitely wary of the way that it intermingles open source, proprietary code and remote services. For that reason, I use the VSCodium build most of the time. You definitely need to take responsibility and read the documentation for each extension that you decide to install. You may be surprised. I would also disagree with the article and recommend that you disable telemetry, unless you…

> but I think that turning it on by default is unethical Not to mention illegal in the EU without explicit informed consent. Accept-by-default etc have been ruled illegal by courts many times.

Does telemetry include any GDPR data?
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