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Microsoft is introducing hidden APIs to VS Code only enabled for Copilot?

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Re: Microsoft is introducing hidden APIs to VS Code only enabled for Copilot?

#61

Post by com2kid »

tristan957 wrote: post #47
rty32 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. That's what Cursor did, and (I think) Microsoft will agree with that and maybe even welcome developers to do this.

Has Microsoft allowed Cursor to access the VSCode Marketplace? As far as I know, it is against the ToS for any editor other than VSCode to access it.

I think Cursor just mirrors the VSCode marketplace on their own servers. They used to have an ugly work around for installing extensions, but now it just works and I see links to https://marketplace.cursorapi.com/ inside of Cursor's extension browser.

Re: Microsoft is introducing hidden APIs to VS Code only enabled for Copilot?

#62

Post by pzmarzly »

tristan957 wrote: post #47
rty32 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. That's what Cursor did, and (I think) Microsoft will agree with that and maybe even welcome developers to do this.

Has Microsoft allowed Cursor to access the VSCode Marketplace? As far as I know, it is against the ToS for any editor other than VSCode to access it.

Probably not. Please suggest to extension authors to dual-publish their extensions to OpenVSX and VSMarketplace. So far all authors I engaged with were happy do to so (except for Microsoft of course, who are the only benefactor of this wallet garden situation).

Re: Microsoft is introducing hidden APIs to VS Code only enabled for Copilot?

#63

Post by tristan957 »

rty32 wrote: post #56
tristan957 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> VSCode is provided fully free as in beer and freedom No, VSCode is a proprietary text editor/IDE from Microsoft. Code-OSS is provided fully free as in beer and freedom, and is currently what resides at https://github.com/microsoft/vscode . Why would Microsoft not want other AI agent extensions to get the same benefits, which would benefit all AI agent users? Edit: I have removed the portion of the comment which dis…

Does throwaway account negates the arguments though?

I think there can be an inherent bias to the argument which should be known, and not hidden away. Nevertheless, I removed that portion of the comment.

Either way, no, a fork is not simple because forks cannot access the VSCode Marketplace.

Re: Microsoft is introducing hidden APIs to VS Code only enabled for Copilot?

#64

Post by ghuntley »

rty32 wrote: post #10

Very interestingly, just yesterday I discovered that VSCode has a set of APIs for adding SSH tunneling, and under normal circumstances you must launch vscode with special flags to be able to use them. Somehow their built-in JavaScript debugging extension can use these APIs without any issues. https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/blob/main/src/vscode-dts... And you can hardly find any public information about these API…

[flagged]

Re: Microsoft is introducing hidden APIs to VS Code only enabled for Copilot?

#65

Post by swiftcoder »

fortenforge wrote: post #55
throw4950sh06 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Eh not quite. Famously, you can fork VSCode, but you can't use the VSCode Extension Marketplace if you do, which loses a lot of the network effect benefits of the VSCode ecosystem. (As far as I know Cursor is flat out violating Microsoft's terms of service with respect to the extension marketplace).

I believe this also blocks you from using Microsoft's proprietary language extensions, and they have been steadily switching the default language packages from OSS to proprietary.

Re: Microsoft is introducing hidden APIs to VS Code only enabled for Copilot?

#66

Post by throw4950sh06 »

fortenforge wrote: post #55
throw4950sh06 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Eh not quite. Famously, you can fork VSCode, but you can't use the VSCode Extension Marketplace if you do, which loses a lot of the network effect benefits of the VSCode ecosystem. (As far as I know Cursor is flat out violating Microsoft's terms of service with respect to the extension marketplace).

OpenVSX. Again this is just the same as RHEL repos behind license login.

Re: Microsoft is introducing hidden APIs to VS Code only enabled for Copilot?

#67

Post by throwup238 »

fortenforge wrote: post #55
throw4950sh06 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Eh not quite. Famously, you can fork VSCode, but you can't use the VSCode Extension Marketplace if you do, which loses a lot of the network effect benefits of the VSCode ecosystem. (As far as I know Cursor is flat out violating Microsoft's terms of service with respect to the extension marketplace).

And a lot of the licenses for flagship Microsoft VSCode extensions for languages like C/C++ and Python don't allow using them outside of VSCode/Extension Marketplace so open source forks are crippled by default.

Re: Microsoft is introducing hidden APIs to VS Code only enabled for Copilot?

#68

Post by [deleted] »

rty32 wrote: post #30
de6u99er wrote: post #3

Lloks like Microsoft is going back to it's old ways. I am not surprised tbh.

I mean, Microsoft has been very clear about their business model of VSCode -- similar to Chromium, the base product is free and you can do whatever you want (and indeed there are lots of products reusing the core of VSCode), but extension marketplace/remote/GitHub Copilot are proprietary. It sounds like a fair deal to me -- Microsoft can't just do open source without expecting to get something in return. Now, coming…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft is introducing hidden APIs to VS Code only enabled for Copilot?

#69

Post by timcobb »

frenchie4111 wrote: post #13

Everyone is reading this as intentional anti-competitive practices. While that may be true, isn't another reasonable explanation that the Copilot development team is moving as fast as they can and these sorts of workarounds are being forced through in the name of team velocity? It takes a lot more time/energy to push public APIs and it's probably a very different team than the team developing the copilot extension. S…

Could be, but definitely worth flagging at the top of HN for everyone to see!

Re: Microsoft is introducing hidden APIs to VS Code only enabled for Copilot?

#70

Post by DidYaWipe »

kburman wrote: post #52
ghuntley wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won't really help ya. As outlined at https://ghuntley.com/fracture/ as soon as you compile "VSCode" (MIT) the ecosystem fractures in a bad way (tm) including no-license to run majority of MSFT extensions (Language LSPs, Copilot, Remote Development). If you are a vendor producing a MIT fork then one needs to iterate the graph and convince 3rd party extension authors to _not use the MSFT extensions_ as dependencies _an…

If MS didn't owned VS code. What would they be doing?

Further enshittifying Windows and Office. I'd say this task must have run its course by now, but Microsoft always seems to find a way to make products worse.
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