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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

#271

Post by lozenge »

WorldMaker wrote: post #237
acdha wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They are saying in that README that pyright as a VS Code Extension will be left to rot, leaving just the typechecker as open source and maintained.

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#272

Post by AshamedCaptain »

acqq wrote: post #258
AshamedCaptain wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It _is_ (I dare say) the important part of the extension, as it contains the language server and then more. E.g. all C++ parsing is done on it.

> all C++ parsing is done on it. Unless somebody needs to change how the C++ sources are processed, doesn't its mere presence allow the extension to function? I.e. if you modify the source of the extension, wouldn't that modified extension still function with the unchanged binary? I fail to see, from the perspective of some user of VS Code: what are the issues of not having the sources for the binary that does C++ pa…

This looks flamebait since it seems you are literally asking "what are the benefits of opensource" ?. For starters, you can no longer run the extension on platforms that MS does not care for, e.g. Haiku or even ARM or RISCV on Linux. Plus the only thing I have ever modified in a C++ IDE is, actually, the C++ autocomplete component, so I do have a reason to want to modify this extension.

> It seems to me comparable to not having a source of Google, but being able to make as many queries as you want

This analogy does not work at all. This is a local component and there are no online services whatsoever involved.

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#273

Post by acqq »

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #272
acqq wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all C++ parsing is done on it. Unless somebody needs to change how the C++ sources are processed, doesn't its mere presence allow the extension to function? I.e. if you modify the source of the extension, wouldn't that modified extension still function with the unchanged binary? I fail to see, from the perspective of some user of VS Code: what are the issues of not having the sources for the binary that does C++ pa…

This looks flamebait since it seems you are literally asking "what are the benefits of opensource" ?. For starters, you can no longer run the extension on platforms that MS does not care for, e.g. Haiku or even ARM or RISCV on Linux. Plus the only thing I have ever modified in a C++ IDE is, actually, the C++ autocomplete component, so I do have a reason to want to modify this extension. > It seems to me comparable to…

> I do have a reason to want to modify this extension.

And it is...? It's a completely honest question, I really like to know what you'd want to achieve and modify but is hidden from you for being in that binary. I'm not interested in the "benefits of open source" but in the specific use cases.

I surely agree that you are limited to the platforms MS is building that binary for, but if you are already using the platform for which they provide the binary, what would you like to change but you can't since it is in the binary and not in the rest of the extension for which there is existing source?

I'm asking as somebody whose job was for many years actually implementing these kinds of software (parsers, compilers, real time parsers for help during editing, etc.). I am really interested in specific use cases, to know if working on the development of some alternative could be justified.

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#274

Post by acdha »

WorldMaker wrote: post #249
acdha wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone said definitively that it wouldn't be open-source in the future? I know sometimes this is due to things like joint or contract development where the lawyers need to hash out the rights first.

No plans according to a comment in July [1]. Curiosity leading me to try to answer my own question with an educated guess: Pylance does appear to use the ONNX runtime, so it seems probable that it could be using ML models for type information to feed to Pyright developed by or in concert with IntelliCode efforts and that research effort of IntelliCode does fit what Microsoft is currently keeping proprietary. [1] http…

Interesting, thanks for the link - that definitely sounds like they’re trying something like using the free version as training for a paid product.

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#275

Post by esperent »

mschuster91 wrote: post #259
esperent wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Under GDPR any kind of data processing falls under the protection umbrella. If processing IPs always required consent, every website, app, and operating system would have to come with a cookie banner. Instead, processing IPs falls under the "required to make things work" banner. I'm sure VSCode processes your IP address for many things such as installing extensions and updates and nobody is arguing they need consen…

> If processing IPs always required consent, every website, app, and operating system would have to come with a cookie banner. Or, you know, they could just not do data collection or limit to reasonable amounts? The way stuff used to be before ubiquitous broadband connections? As the GDPR intended? > Instead, processing IPs falls under the "required to make things work" banner. I'm sure VSCode processes your IP addre…

Well, I honestly don't care enough about non-identifying data being collected to continue this discussion. However, if you really feel that this is illegal under the GDPR, rather than wait for lawyers to get involved (which might never happen), why not open an issue on the VSCode repo and discuss it there?

Even if they dismiss it, it might help matters for lawyers at a later date - as in, they can point to the issue that was opened and say, you cannot deny being aware of this issue because you dismissed people's concerns previously.

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#276

Post by AshamedCaptain »

acqq wrote: post #273
AshamedCaptain wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This looks flamebait since it seems you are literally asking "what are the benefits of opensource" ?. For starters, you can no longer run the extension on platforms that MS does not care for, e.g. Haiku or even ARM or RISCV on Linux. Plus the only thing I have ever modified in a C++ IDE is, actually, the C++ autocomplete component, so I do have a reason to want to modify this extension. > It seems to me comparable to…

> I do have a reason to want to modify this extension. And it is...? It's a completely honest question, I really like to know what you'd want to achieve and modify but is hidden from you for being in that binary. I'm not interested in the "benefits of open source" but in the specific use cases. I surely agree that you are limited to the platforms MS is building that binary for, but if you are already using the platfo…

Back in 2016, my team started using the structured binding declaration (C++1z, yes) in our codebase, aka "auto [a, b] = ...".

At the point I was using Qt Creator which had two C++ parsers: a custom one which was very fast but not keeping up with the times and (optionally) a clang-based one. I was using the "custom" parser because it would take 2 minutes to scan a small 10MLOC codebase where the clang one would take almost a day (and still takes multiple hours, and so does the Eclipse CDT parser and others).

That small custom parser would choke on structured binding declarations, and it would recover in the most terrible way possible as it would skip entire functions. Thereby I was starting to lose autocomplete on huge chunks of the codebase.

Now, I have quite a bit of experience on parsers, so it was trivial for me (one weekend) to change the QtCreator one to handle these declarations like (a series of) auto declarations (which it did not do that well, but it was workable). I was able to get another 2 years out of QtCreator with that fix. By then I didn't care.

But this is just my particular example.

I really don't understand why usecases for an opensource IDE would be surprising, specially since this is _developers_ we are talking about, the most likely group of people to feel comfortable editing the IDE to their liking.

Re: The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary

#277

Post by anaisbetts »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #89
anaisbetts wrote: post #27

I mean, if you don't like that then you probably shouldn't be using Google Chrome because it has similarly proprietary bits (geolocation, translation are a few examples, but there are afaik ~30-50). Firefox most likely does as well.

If you don't know, you shouldn't throw accusations. Also at least for firefox and chromium (but not chrome) you can look at the source.

I absolutely Do Know
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