Visual Studio Code is designed to fracture

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A couple of moments ago, I finished reading the article by Rob O'Leary about the pervasive data collection done by Visual Studio Code.<br>Whilst Visual Studio Code is "open-source" (as per the OSD) the value-add which transforms the editor into anything of value ("what people actually refer to when they talk about using VSCode") is far from open and full of intentionally designed minefields that often makes using Visual Studio Code in any other way than what Microsoft desires legally risky...<br>In this blog post, we explore the ecosystem of open-source forks, revisit the story so far of how Microsoft has been transforming from products to services, go deep into why the Visual Studio Code ecosystem is designed to fracture, and discuss the legal implications of this design. Then, we discuss future problems faced by the software development ecosystem if our industry continues as-is on the current path.it is their ecosystem that they control, and they are in absolute controlit is their ecosystem that they control, and they are in absolute control<br>Yup! And that’s by design 🙂<br>— Phillip Carter (@_cartermp) May 18, 2022

By the end of this blog post, I hope more folks understand that using anything other than the official distribution of Visual Studio Code provided by Microsoft (or GitHub via Codespaces) can easily expose yourself or your company to legal risks similar to incorrectly using Docker Desktop or the Oracle JDK.<br>Docker Now Requiring Paid Subscription for Large Businesses<br>Docker has introduced a new Subscription Service Agreement which requires organizations with more than 250 employees or more than $10 million in revenue to buy a paid subscription, starting at $5 per user per month. Additionally, Docker has launched a new Business subscription plan for larger organi…<br>InfoQSergio De Simone

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visual studio code is now seven years old<br>Visual Studio Code was released seven years ago and is fast becoming the de facto standard editor for software development. Sure, there's also the JetBrains product suite, Emacs, Neovim, XCode, and Visual Studio [for Windows and Mac], but VSCode is likely installed on your computer right now.<br>The source code has been released by Microsoft under the open-source MIT license, but the product available for download (Visual Studio Code) is licensed under this proprietary license. This small distinction matters a lot and is the primary mechanism that Microsoft uses to fork open-source communities.<br>This comment from a Visual Studio Code maintainer explains the process of how Microsoft generates its builds:<br>When we [Microsoft] build Visual Studio Code, we clone the vscode repository, lay down a customized product.json that has Microsoft specific functionality (telemetry, gallery, logo, etc.), and then produce a build that we release under our license.<br>In the broader community, there are two leading distributions based on the MIT source code: vscodium & openvscodeserver.<br>vscodium is an oss desktop distribution<br>Members of the free software community became concerned by the usage of the proprietary license and launched the VSCodium project as a community-driven, freely-licensed desktop distribution of Visual Studio Code in binary form. The project automatically follows the upstream open-source (MIT) project and generates binary builds without the telemetry found in the official releases.<br>https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/blob/master/DOCS.md#disable-telemetryThe VSCodium follows the same process outlined by the Visual Studio Code maintainer:<br>When you [VSCodium] clone and build from the vscode repo, none of these endpoints are configured in the default product.json. Therefore, you generate a “clean” build, without the Microsoft customizations, which is by default licensed under the MIT license<br>Rob is correct with the following statement from his blog post on telemetry:<br>However, VSCodium can’t shut out all the data collection as it is the same codebase. And since extensions act independently with regard to data collection, you still need to be mindful of what extensions you install.<br>VSCodium does an extremely good job at disabling data collection, but due to not being licensed by Microsoft under the proprietary license VSCodium is not able to connect to the Microsoft Visual Studio Code Marketplace and suffers from the ecosystem fracture by design problem...<br>openvscodeserver is an oss server distribution<br>OpenVSCodeServer is similar to VSCodium in that it is also not allowed to connect to Microsoft Visual Studio Code Marketplace and suffers from the same ecosystem fracture by design problem. The project is a company-driven, freely-licensed server distribution of Visual Studio Code in binary form that is the backbone of Gitpod. The...