Dozens of AI powered IDE forked from VSCode impacted. Now is the right time for better managed openVSX, more collaborative efforts.
OpenVSX, which VSCode forks rely on for extensions, down for 24 hours
131–140 of 158 posts
Re: OpenVSX, which VSCode forks rely on for extensions, down for 24 hours
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel that you're conflating few concepts, hackability, "open source", single point of failure architectures. Yes, VSC is less hackable than emacs, but I don't think it's necessarily the same thing. VSC (and others like it) are going for a more streamlined "App Store" experience, while emacs is going for a more DIY/hackable style editor. You can always fetching the VSIX file and sideload it is if the "store" is down…
My point about VSC is that brands itself as "open source" when Microsoft clearly intends for it to have a proprietary, tightly controlled ecosystem. It's not just RMS-unapproved, it's practically a lie. You can use it as a FOSS editor, but only if you are willing to accept a vastly subpar experience. Oh, and they've started cracking down on people using their proprietary VSC plugins in derived editors, too. I expecte…
It's very easy to point VSCodium at the official MS extension marketplace. Everything works.
Re: OpenVSX, which VSCode forks rely on for extensions, down for 24 hours
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel that you're conflating few concepts, hackability, "open source", single point of failure architectures. Yes, VSC is less hackable than emacs, but I don't think it's necessarily the same thing. VSC (and others like it) are going for a more streamlined "App Store" experience, while emacs is going for a more DIY/hackable style editor. You can always fetching the VSIX file and sideload it is if the "store" is down…
> is Microsoft also expected to create the mirror clone? Allowing open source VS Code (ie. VS Code you compiled from Microsoft’s repo) to access extensions would be enough. Nobody is asking Microsoft for more than basic access. It’s does not even require a code changes, just a policy change. Even Google allows Chrome forks to access the Chrome Store.
Not even a policy change, you update one file in AppData and you're in.
Re: OpenVSX, which VSCode forks rely on for extensions, down for 24 hours
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem isn't the distribution system, it's the licenses on the flagship Microsoft extensions that provide C/C++, Python, Javascript/Typescript, etc. support. Those licenses are entirely Microsoft's fault.
Language servers are open source. One can write your own extension like we do today for Vim and Emacs. There is no reason we should expect Microsoft to invest tens of millions of dollars into a product development and give it free for competitors like Cursor. That's not just rational, even for companies that are not Microsoft.
100% this. It would be one thing if the only LSPs you could build came from Microsoft, but that’s just not true. It’s just that developing LSPs isn’t free.
Cursor, Windsurf, etc. are building multi-billion dollar businesses off the backs of the work that the VS Code team has done. And that’s totally fine! What’s not fine, is trying to have access to the whole ecosystem of first party extensions that aren’t MIT licensed.
I agree there should be more resilient extension repos, but this is one of the problems Eclipse Theia [0] has tried to take on, but most projects just fork the core VS Code experience and slot in OpenVSX rather than doing the hard, expensive work of building their own extension marketplaces or LSPs. And you know what, for a community or OSS fork, I think that’s fair. I think when you raise hundreds of millions in funding, you can build your own LSPs and start to maintain your own infra for extensions. And if you’ve got enough buy-in, you can probably convince developers to submit directly to your marketplace too.
And it isn’t even a rug pull, per se. The first changes to the license on some of the 1P VS Code extensions probably happened in late 2018 or early 2019, with remote share. The LSPs may have changed later. If anything, the Code team was probably too lax about letting the commercial forks use their resources wholesale against the license terms for as long as they did.
Disclaimer: I used to work at Microsoft and then at GitHub with things that touched VS Code. I now work at Google, who uses VS Code (well Monaco) inside some of our editors/products, but I don’t work on any of those.
Re: OpenVSX, which VSCode forks rely on for extensions, down for 24 hours
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is not criminal, but it is unlawful.
EULAs and TOS are not legal agreements. It is not unlawful to break them. The TOS is purely a thing that the owner can point at as a legitimate reason for banning you. There is no law anywhere binding you to the terms of an EULA or TOS. It's even less binding than a verbal agreement and a handshake.
Honestly incredible this level of misinformation is getting posted on HN: https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&q=are+eula+legally+...
Re: OpenVSX, which VSCode forks rely on for extensions, down for 24 hours
#136What are good, open source, alternatives to VS Code? That are modern IDEs with decent support for frontend, backend, data science, and embedded (possibly via extensions)? That mostly work out of the box, without having to set up and configure NN things.
Zed is close, keep an eye on it when 1.0 comes out, probably later this year.
Re: OpenVSX, which VSCode forks rely on for extensions, down for 24 hours
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel that you're conflating few concepts, hackability, "open source", single point of failure architectures. Yes, VSC is less hackable than emacs, but I don't think it's necessarily the same thing. VSC (and others like it) are going for a more streamlined "App Store" experience, while emacs is going for a more DIY/hackable style editor. You can always fetching the VSIX file and sideload it is if the "store" is down…
It's even worse. VSCode used to be more open source originally, back when it was enthusiastically adopted. And then, gradually, official extensions started replacing parts with closed blobs with onerous licensing terms. C# and Python extensions have both suffered from this. Although the C++ one was never fully open, if I remember correctly.
Same for the c# one I think, the old language server was and is still open source but the .net core debugger has always been proprietary.
I imagine it is because it is derived from the Visual Studio debugger in some fashion. JetBrains ran into the same problem with Rider back in the .NET core days and had to write their own debugger.
Re: OpenVSX, which VSCode forks rely on for extensions, down for 24 hours
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
> VSCode is Android Yes, an open source project that creates immense value, but fails to fulfill some purist fantasy.
I would immediately jump ship if I could buy a phone that supports a truly free OS. Instead, I'm stuck with an option between a reasonably-secure, but completely locked-down phone (both hardware and software) with an exorbitant life-long cost and semi-locked-down phones with a pseudo-FOSS OS, whose main business is to my leak personal data for a dozen companies. Honestly, the only reason why Android (and iOS) reign u…
> I would immediately jump ship if I could buy a phone that supports a truly free OS.
Is your definition of “Phone” equivalent to “must run apps (non-emulated) for iPhone and/or Android”? Otherwise, I mean, these things do exist: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/>
Re: OpenVSX, which VSCode forks rely on for extensions, down for 24 hours
#139I noticed this the other day when I installed VSCodium on my new Windows box. I had a functional setup for one day , then the next day I couldn't install a language extension I direly needed. It's left a very sour taste in my mouth. I've used Emacs for ages and despite being a much more niche editor, it's never been so hard-dependent on centralized repositories, and the centralized repositories it does have (ELPA/MEL…
Microsoft has never been pro open source, yet so many devs fell for their marketing lies.
Microsoft is pro open source, it's just that they use it as a means rather than an end which trips up a lot of people who view open source differently.
Its a tool they use to encourage adoption of their developer tools and get people to spend more money in Azure, not a philosophical stance.
Re: OpenVSX, which VSCode forks rely on for extensions, down for 24 hours
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was watching the "Simple Made Easy" talk by Rick Hickey, and while he was talking more about programming languages, the talk could extend easily to editors and other type of tooling. People are always going for easy, not simple. Vim is very simple (a composable language for editing, straightforward integration with cli tools, easily extendable,...). Emacs is simple (Major mode that dictates main operations and disp…
People will opt for what's accessible. Vim requires you to learn an alien control scheme to even navigate through code, and Emacs requires you to learn an incredibly unique programming language — one that sees no real world use, let's be honest — for basic tasks. Is it any surprise, then, that Microsoft had no issue swooping in and dominating the editor market when Emacs and Vim users believe that these are "features…
> Emacs requires you to learn an incredibly unique programming language — one that sees no real world use, let's be honest — for basic tasks.
Exactly what basic tasks in Emacs requires Emacs Lisp? Give me your best/worst example. I can’t think of one.