Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

OpenVSX, which VSCode forks rely on for extensions, down for 24 hours

status.open-vsx.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 158 posts

Re: OpenVSX, which VSCode forks rely on for extensions, down for 24 hours

#81

Post by fhcbix »

eddythompson80 wrote: post #34
fr4nkr wrote: post #12

I 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…

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…

I was gonna write this. Package management with distributed mirrors for both speed + redundancy are a solved problem in the Linux world. Ship trusted signing keys and even the shadiest mirror becomes verifiable.

Re: OpenVSX, which VSCode forks rely on for extensions, down for 24 hours

#82

Post by blackoil »

fr4nkr wrote: post #12

I 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…

The model is called Open Core, so is well understood so I am not sure what is causing this confusion. The editor is open source as evident from a dozen forks. The complete experience which includes extensions has closed source pieces which the forks won't access to. But OSS community can build replacement or other companies can provide alternatives.

Just because pylance is available doesn't stop jetbrains/Google/OSS from creating an LS. Maybe no such exists as if now, but not from a technical blocker. Just no one created one.

Re: OpenVSX, which VSCode forks rely on for extensions, down for 24 hours

#83

Post by blackoil »

exceptione wrote: post #2

There is not much to see on a server that is down, so let me share some free advice instead. Visit Eclipse Theia in the mean time when you are serious about de-risking from VSCode. I think VSCodium is doing an uphill battle here, while Microsoft can't help them self being a sales company first. In Theia, everything is open and free of spyware. MS is under no obligation to provide an OSS editor, but playing tricks aft…

They use vscode extensions and the repository in discussion, so not sure how much derisking it is than vscodium .

Re: OpenVSX, which VSCode forks rely on for extensions, down for 24 hours

#85

Post by jononor »

What 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.

Re: OpenVSX, which VSCode forks rely on for extensions, down for 24 hours

#86

Post by bsder »

harshitaneja wrote: post #70
bsder wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> MS is under no obligation to provide an OSS editor, but playing tricks after luring people in is not nice. Microsoft is partly to blame, but people have been warning about this over and over and over ad nauseam and people still choose to use VSCode. You couldn't even get people to not use the proprietary extensions for C/C++, Python and remote development. The problem is that Microsoft dedicates enough resource to…

Genuinely curious, how did Microsoft "shoved it down everybody's throats"? And weren't Jetbrains, Eclipse, Vim, Emacs dominant enough(especially Jetbrains) to have done so before Microsoft?

VSCode garnered such a significant market share that supporting VSCode almost immediately becomes your #1 editor (see Rust surveys: 2016-3%, 2017-30%, 2018-45%, 2020-54%, 2023-62%--note: VSCode was only released in 2016!).

Since the LSP was the only effective way that you could support syntax highlighting in VSCode, languages had to create an LSP or they didn't exist to VSCode users. Once the language supports VSCode, anyone not already steeped in the editor wars switched.

At that point, the editors had to support the LSP or get left behind.

With JetBrains, the issue is that they would have almost certainly considered an LSP as a competitive advantage. It would have taken some amazing foresight to release something like that as OSS and not be afraid of losing market share if you get vim/neovim to adopt it (you can ignore emacs market share--the editor wars are all but over and emacs lost badly).

Re: OpenVSX, which VSCode forks rely on for extensions, down for 24 hours

#87

Post by jeroenhd »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #4

Remember vs code is designed to fracture and the forks are an integral part of that. https://ghuntley.com/fracture/

I fail to see the problem with this, to be honest. Microsoft provides a free IDE for everyone to use on any platform, but it's not good enough because the language runtimes and proprietary third party tools aren't completely free?

Maybe Microsoft should've made VSCode source-available. Sure, companies taking Microsoft's free labour would need to develop an IDE of their own (or maybe someone can hack Eclipse to work as a browser project?), but at least Microsoft wouldn't take the heat for not doing enough free work for everyone else.

Re: OpenVSX, which VSCode forks rely on for extensions, down for 24 hours

#88

Post by imcritic »

bangaladore wrote: post #13
imcritic wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I switch from vscodium to theia?

Theia is not a fork of vscode (even though it looks like it). It uses VSCode's code editor (Monoco) and is written from the ground up. Presumably allowing it to support extensions, that for example, vscode does not. However, its early days.

This doesn't answer my question in the slightest. What does it offer so nice that vscodium doesn't have and that would push me to switch to theia?

Re: OpenVSX, which VSCode forks rely on for extensions, down for 24 hours

#89

Post by tuyiown »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #14
joshstrange wrote: post #7

I'm sure some (many?) will disagree with me but: VSCode is Android. Or rather, VSCode's source is AOSP and the marketplace, plugins, etc are Google Play Services. I say that with maximum derision.

> VSCode is Android Yes, an open source project that creates immense value, but fails to fulfill some purist fantasy.

I've yet to see any immense success based on the open source part of android.

Its value and main goal is to suffocate any initiative on mobile space, call it immense if you will, but I concede it certainly works.

Re: OpenVSX, which VSCode forks rely on for extensions, down for 24 hours

#90

Post by BlueTemplar »

goku12 wrote: post #77
eddythompson80 wrote: post #34

Earlier 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…

> Pretty sure RMS would argue linux is less "open source" than emacs too. The word you're looking for is 'free'. Free as in freedom and free software. The open source philosophy focuses on the openness of the code base and the associated advantages. Free software philosophy highlights the freedom that the software gives its user on their devices . Opening the source code is just a means to that end for the free softw…

Speaking of, 4 freedoms might not be enough any more :

https://elevenfreedoms.org/

Post reply on HN