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You Think the Visual Studio Code Binary You Use Is Open Source? Think Again

carlchenet.com

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Re: You Think the Visual Studio Code Binary You Use Is Open Source? Think Again

#21

Post by duckerude »

dvh wrote: post #5

Wrong title. Article says "free software" which makes much more sense than "open source" in title. On HN you should know the difference.

They're pretty much interchangeable in this title. Saying "open source" instead of "free software" preserves the meaning but makes it less ambiguous. The difference matters when you're talking about ideology, but it's not so important when you're talking about the legal status of a piece of software.

The Open Source Definition was adapted from the Debian Free Software Guidelines, which the FSF approves of.

According to gnu.org: "The two terms describe almost the same category of software" (https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....).

Re: You Think the Visual Studio Code Binary You Use Is Open Source? Think Again

#22

Post by netgusto »

azinman2 wrote: post #11

So what’s so bad in the end? If vscode is good and closed source, I’d still use it.

The difference, according to the article, is in the way Microsoft apparently misleads users into thinking that the binary is the straight product from open source code compilation, which it seems it is not (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18012688)

This can drive privacy concerned people to use the product because they (wrongly) think it's open source and fully community reviewed.

Re: You Think the Visual Studio Code Binary You Use Is Open Source? Think Again

#25

Post by oliwarner »

"MIT allows this" is a red herring.

Even if the source was GPL, if Microsoft own[1] it, they can do whatever the hell they like with it.

[1] own or own enough rights. Before any PRs are accepted, you need to sign the CLA https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/wiki/Contributor-License...

Re: You Think the Visual Studio Code Binary You Use Is Open Source? Think Again

#26

Post by bubblethink »

huntie wrote: post #6

This has been known for nearly two years now[1], and was talked about here a few months ago[2]. VSCode also downloads code from MicroSoft servers during the build process and won't build without an Internet connection. I'm pretty sure someone had forked VSCode like ungoogled-chromium but I can't find the repository. [1] https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/17996 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17346492

Flathub has the free version https://flathub.org/apps/details/com.visualstudio.code.oss and the non-free one https://flathub.org/apps/details/com.visualstudio.code

Tangentially, this is one of my gripes with stuff like flathub/snapstore since they are hybrid stores of both free and non-free software. In the traditional model, you can trust your debian/fedora maintainers to have strict standards for anything that gets to the base system. Now, with more and more distros enabling snap/flatpak by default, it dilutes that guarantee. Perhaps snap/flatpak ought to adopt a granular free/non-free distinction like repos.

Re: You Think the Visual Studio Code Binary You Use Is Open Source? Think Again

#28

Post by kirb »

carlchenet wrote: post #17
jakobegger wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The license forbids you to reverse-engineer, so how would you find out without breaking the license?

I strongly agree, as I said in the article by license using VSC your renounce your rights to reverse-engineer the VSC. So you take a legal risk making it and blogging/talking/podcasting about it on Internet and can face legal actions.

I’m certain the community would be very surprised if Nadella’s “OSS is good” Microsoft tried to go after an independent research post citing that clause. It’s there so they have some legally valid substance to roll with if they want to go after a significant case. Say, Jetbrains implementing something that blatantly seems to have been inspired by reverse engineering a proprietary part of VSCode. Not a good example and VSCode’s proprietary bits are so minor it probably isn’t worth pursuing but it should highlight the difference. Keep in mind too it could gain more proprietary features in future, added without needing to update the EULA and bothering users with Yet Another Policy Update they have to agree to.

Re: You Think the Visual Studio Code Binary You Use Is Open Source? Think Again

#29

Post by huntie »

josh64 wrote: post #14
huntie wrote: post #6

This has been known for nearly two years now[1], and was talked about here a few months ago[2]. VSCode also downloads code from MicroSoft servers during the build process and won't build without an Internet connection. I'm pretty sure someone had forked VSCode like ungoogled-chromium but I can't find the repository. [1] https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/17996 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17346492

Are you thinking of https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium ?

Yeah that's it.

Re: You Think the Visual Studio Code Binary You Use Is Open Source? Think Again

#30

Post by liftbigweights »

I still don't get the love ( real or manufactured ) for VS Code. There are far better tools to use on linux. On windows, you should use visual studio. VS Code doesn't make much sense unless you want to install additional spyware.

It's funny to see people say how "light" VSCode is when they use it as a glorified notepad for a few days. Then they install more and more extensions and then slowly VS Code evolves into Visual Studio.

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