I would imagine the threat for Microsoft is Amazon picking up what they have done and using it to compete against Azure.
Microsoft Refuses to Open Source VSCode Python Language Server
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Re: Microsoft Refuses to Open Source VSCode Python Language Server
#12I hate to bring out the old “embrace, extend, extinguish” argument, but I honestly can’t think of any other reason for this. Visual Studio Code has gotten really popular lately, but I think very few people realize that many parts of it are closed source. And you can’t take extensions from the Microsoft store and use them in your own editor…this just seems designed to get people to use your editor, give them enough so…
Classic bait-and-switch with their M*N to M+N argument; totally looks like Embrace-Extend-Extinguish
Here’s the relevant snippet from the Pylance language server’s T&Cs
> INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS. a) General. You may install and use any number of copies of the software only with Microsoft Visual Studio, Visual Studio for Mac, Visual Studio Code, Azure DevOps, Team Foundation Server, and successor Microsoft products and services (collectively, the “Visual Studio Products and Services”) to develop and test your applications. b) Third Party Components. The software may include third party components with separate legal notices or governed by other agreements, as may be described in the ThirdPartyNotices file(s) accompanying the software.
Ref: https://github.com/microsoft/pylance-release/issues/4#issuec...
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That they would forbid their holy language server implementation from integrating with other editors exposes the perfidy at the heart of their LSP advocacy.
If they want to keep the extension proprietary and charge for the language server, that’s fine! But allow people to use it with whichever editor instead of forbidding it through the license. It’s wholly malicious to use a language server implementation to extend control to the editor landscape. This is exactly the kind of nonsense that got them in trouble in the 90s, in the first place.
Seems like Microsoft is back to pissing in the public pool.
Re: Microsoft Refuses to Open Source VSCode Python Language Server
#13I hate to bring out the old “embrace, extend, extinguish” argument, but I honestly can’t think of any other reason for this. Visual Studio Code has gotten really popular lately, but I think very few people realize that many parts of it are closed source. And you can’t take extensions from the Microsoft store and use them in your own editor…this just seems designed to get people to use your editor, give them enough so…
It's not "embrace" because they made VSCode in the first place?
I don't want to say MS is good, proprietary software is good, etc. But we're approaching the 4th decade of Free Software, and people should know better than tangling their free software with megacorp offering. I shed no tears.
Re: Microsoft Refuses to Open Source VSCode Python Language Server
#14God forbid developers and companies try to make money off their work!
Don't know why you're being downvoted. People pay for IDEs all the time since it benefits their productivity but seem to have a problem when Microsoft release free proprietary tools. Maybe someone can explain what the issue is because I don't see it.
Because it's Microsoft so people here are always looking for problems. I never seen anyone mentioning that XCode isn't open source. Or Sublime Text for that matter.
Re: Microsoft Refuses to Open Source VSCode Python Language Server
#15I hate to bring out the old “embrace, extend, extinguish” argument, but I honestly can’t think of any other reason for this. Visual Studio Code has gotten really popular lately, but I think very few people realize that many parts of it are closed source. And you can’t take extensions from the Microsoft store and use them in your own editor…this just seems designed to get people to use your editor, give them enough so…
This is Microsoft limiting the extension they created to their IDE.
It’s like complaining that Google won’t open source, or support, the Google Cast feature in Firefox or Edge.
It’s worse because a non MS entity can always put in the effort to create a Python language server and have that used across IDEs that support the LSP, but the Google Cast protocol is proprietary itself and one cannot even create their own implementation without severe reverse engineering.
Re: Microsoft Refuses to Open Source VSCode Python Language Server
#16I hate to bring out the old “embrace, extend, extinguish” argument, but I honestly can’t think of any other reason for this. Visual Studio Code has gotten really popular lately, but I think very few people realize that many parts of it are closed source. And you can’t take extensions from the Microsoft store and use them in your own editor…this just seems designed to get people to use your editor, give them enough so…
" but prevent any other editor from reusing it. That doesn’t sound very open at all."? How so? language server is a standard.
Well, that’s exactly what I was confused about before myself! I was using some other Python language server, but it seemed a bit slow so I asked around for suggestions and got this recommended to me. Of course I assumed that I would be able to use Microsoft’s implementation in my preferred editor, Sublime Text, since that was the whole point behind LSP…but it turns out that no, you can’t. You can download it from the Marketplace, but it bans you from doing exactly that. And there’s no source provided, so there isn’t another way to get it. So you’re pretty stuck…
Re: Microsoft Refuses to Open Source VSCode Python Language Server
#17I hate to bring out the old “embrace, extend, extinguish” argument, but I honestly can’t think of any other reason for this. Visual Studio Code has gotten really popular lately, but I think very few people realize that many parts of it are closed source. And you can’t take extensions from the Microsoft store and use them in your own editor…this just seems designed to get people to use your editor, give them enough so…
Does Microsoft disallow people from using the Microsoft marketplace for VS code extensions in their own editors? Because I notice on Edge, if I visit the chrome store, it gives me an option to install extensions from there.
Yep. It's the same tactic Signal uses - sure, you can fork it, but the fork can't legally use their servers.
Re: Microsoft Refuses to Open Source VSCode Python Language Server
#18God forbid developers and companies try to make money off their work!
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Re: Microsoft Refuses to Open Source VSCode Python Language Server
#19I have pretty much respect for Microsoft for open sourcing a lot of things and changing their culture for the better.
Don't have anything against them having closed sourced applications, frameworks or languages.
You cannot ask for everything all the time.
Re: Microsoft Refuses to Open Source VSCode Python Language Server
#20I hate to bring out the old “embrace, extend, extinguish” argument, but I honestly can’t think of any other reason for this. Visual Studio Code has gotten really popular lately, but I think very few people realize that many parts of it are closed source. And you can’t take extensions from the Microsoft store and use them in your own editor…this just seems designed to get people to use your editor, give them enough so…
It doesn't seem like all that much of a lock-in? If people get annoyed enough they could fork the open source parts and rewrite the extensions that aren't open source.
Furthermore, there are programmers using other languages where the extensions are already open source, so it would be viable for some users from the start.
I'm also reminded of how some companies built their business on open source servers only for Amazon to create a competing service with their code. This makes me more sympathetic to the partial open source business model.