It's somewhat sad that this is on GitHub, but the source isn't, the release contains a binary and sources that don't match and the installation suggests using the store anyway. It almost seems like this is just posturing on GitHub while just being the same old closed distribution. Should probably have been a GitHub.io website instead of a fake repo.
Posturing? The repo states its intent right at the top. Just using git does not mean you are forced to provide source code lol.
Damn, if people really are this gullible I should become a con artist. "Well technically I never said that the gold plated gold watch I was selling was made of gold, sooooo I'm just gonna leave. And if you're mad at me, that's on you."
People _are_ influenced by this type of behavior indeed. Just look around how many people overestimate how much of e.g. Visual Studio Code is open.
A good chunk of the best functionality is behind extensions which are often proprietary, but that actually doesn't bother me that much. Especially because many of the proprietary extensions rely on functionality provided by 3rd party servers, where the owner (usually MS) is eating the cost. That seems fair to me.
The core editor is about as open as you can get. The ecosystem around it is not. That's actually the same model that many Linux distros follow.
--- edit - I'd love to see someone downvoting me provide a compelling response to the full source available here:
https://github.com/microsoft/vscode
under the MIT license...
https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/blob/main/LICENSE.txt
Again - Microsoft customizes that in the same way the google customizes chromium, but having built both from source... I find it hard to argue it's anything other than open source tooling.
Again - the ecosystem is not (although it certainly can be, depending on the extensions used).