The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary • Hacker News Board

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#231

Post by jamesgeck0 » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 4:09 PM UTC

wlesieutre wrote: post #172

fadzlan wrote: post #130

The extension by design is made to be optional to use and are not integral (I would argue) to the vanilla experience of VS Code. That also means that if other people wants to create their own proprietary extensions they can do so. The basic experience of the plain VS Code does not change. Now one can say indeed that the Remote and also LiveShare is the best extension there of, and since the extension author decides n…

code-server has most extensions available. They do it by scraping GitHub for extensions and building them. https://github.com/cdr/code-server/blob/3da6c561b83d2a4c57f3... The Microsoft extensions are notably missing, but they have a lot of other ones. There's an issue template for requesting another one if you find something missing. Not sure if their second extension store is available for use by software other than…

There's been recent discussion about TypeFox and Coder combining efforts on Open VSX after the transfer to Eclipse Foundation is complete.

https://github.com/cdr/code-server/issues/1473

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#232

Post by jamesgeck0 » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 4:16 PM UTC

GordonS wrote: post #33

CiTyBear wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

The big surprise for me is that the extension repository isn't (legally) accessible by any open source distributions of VSCode. It's not technically part of VSCode, but it's a big piece of functionality that I would have expected to be available.

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#233

Post by skyfaller » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

What open source alternatives are there to LiveShare? I've become rather reliant on LiveShare, I had never checked whether each extension I was using was open source.

Teletype for Atom appears to be under an MIT license, and it seemed to work fine for me before I switched to VS Code (after M$ acquired Github and I figured Atom was doomed). https://github.com/atom/teletype

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#234

Post by kls » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 4:38 PM UTC

skohan wrote: post #212

kls wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it is just me, but I have never clicked on that pop-up. I always go to the extension tab and add extensions there, where the second link at the top, has a direct link to the licence of said extension. I always go to the extensions tab because it provides documentation about the extension, which I want to read before I add it to my IDE.

Do you think that is the intended user interaction?

Many times, how developers / (manager that think it is a great idea) design an application and how users, use an application do not intersect. I personally would not install an extension to my IDE without at least skimming the docs, checking the licence to see if I am going to have to subscribe or pay later, and checking reviews to ensure that it's a legit extension. I am certain, that there is a contingent of people that do, but as for developers, I would expect them to be a power users that knows better than to just click a yeah, sure install that button.

Honestly, if that where the only way to install extensions on VS Code it would probably be a deal breaker for me. I never install something because the application tells me I should. Especially in an ecosystem where anyone can provide a package. To me it would be akin to blindly adding an Node module, python module, jar or any other third party provided dependency to the custom software I am writing without first vetting it. I mean the licence for an extension, could very well state, that any software produce form the use of this extension, entitles the author of the extension a 10% royalty from said resulting software. That is a very real and valid licence, game engines, codecs, encoders use it all the time.

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#235

Post by ShamelessC » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 4:45 PM UTC

Deukhoofd wrote: post #8

The best parts of Code are the editor functions. If I had to name the good parts of Code I wouldn't even think about LiveShare, it's mostly a gimmick I've looked at once or twice. As for the marketplace, most extensions link to their github repositories, from where you can download and install the extensions. The marketplace itself is mostly a convenience thing.

I had never even heard of LiveShare until today.

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#236

Post by pjmlp » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 4:46 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #222

pjmlp wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox doesn't use WebKit, and no it is not a separate problem because it shows how being FOSS isn't enough.

Firefox does not use WebKit (and at this point neither does anyone else), but they can look at patches to WebKit to understand how Apple improved Safari's performance. Because Apple produces the hardware, the OS, and the browser, the choices they make in the WebKit implementation are highly informative. > it shows how being FOSS isn't enough This is true for every app on iOS: even if you have the source code, you can…

No they cannot unless they want to contaminate their development, as far as I recall the licenses aren't compatible.

It is true for any commercial application with source code available since there are computers.

If the user freedoms were of any value as you mention, WebKit and Bink would use copyleft licenses.

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#237

Post by WorldMaker » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 4:46 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #197

lozenge wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft's Python support just went closed source(pylance vs python language server) the closed sourceness is creeping in on multiple sides. IntelliCode is another closed source aspect.

More precisely, the Python extension is open source but the Pylance language server is not: https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-python https://github.com/microsoft/pylance-release

Pylance is built upon the Pyright language server which is open source: https://github.com/microsoft/pyright

I'm curious what research/IP has lead to this being a source turducken of open-closed-open, but it's not entirely closed.

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#238

Post by ShamelessC » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 4:47 PM UTC

recrof wrote: post #45

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?

I mean, yeah? That's a common attack against Google and the reason ungoogled forks of Android exist.

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#239

Post by acqq » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 4:49 PM UTC

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #188

acqq wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your claim is supported by the "Offline installation" section of: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools "The extension has platform-specific binary dependencies , therefore installation via the Marketplace requires an Internet connection in order to download additional dependencies. If you are working on a computer that does not have access to the Internet or is behind a strict firewall, you may need to use ou…

No, not at all . Platform specific does not mean proprietary. In fact, the same vsix also contains a lldb and a mono binary ( which are platform dependent) but these are opensource and in fact build scripts are provided. It is the hidden cpptools binary which has no source that is the problem. And that one is not that well announced. So lot of people think the extension is opensource when the important bits are not.

> It is the hidden cpptools binary which has no source that is the problem.

Anybody knows what that binary does?

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#240

Post by TAForObvReasons » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 4:54 PM UTC

electronstudio wrote: post #131

dmortin wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most developers don't care they just want to get to job done. Many of them use IntelliJ, etc. which is not free software either. Those who care about using fee software already know about these things, because they check before starting to use a new software.

They don’t brag about it as much as Microsoft do but IntelliJ Community Edition is free software. https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community/blob/master/...

... and open source (Apache 2.0 License)