Yes and no. The complaint is that some widely used extensions are proprietary. If these extensions require MS servers, then they have every reason to be. Even if they don't, there's nothing wrong with a company holding back some stuff they consider strategic, they're not obligated to release them.
If we're debating the OSS credentials of VSCode, it'll need to be based on the code already released (which makes it a pretty great OSS editor) and the current team of people the company has devoted to maintaining that OSS section of the product (also pretty great).
Arguing that there are some extensions that are closed source and that's bad is a bit weird, especially when we can just make an open sourced extension that does the same thing.
I don't think it says "Software not open-source is bad". But more something like "It is marketed as open source but it is not".
Developers should be aware that VSCode is not as open source as it claims it is. In my circles, developers could swear VSCode is fully open source without even knowing VSCodium.
If people were more aware about this, they might think twice before using VSCode for everything and getting lock-in (just like the article says)
>But more something like "It is marketed as open source but it is not". Developers should be aware that VSCode is not as open source as it claims it is.
Honest question...
Is SQLite also deceiving people about its "open source credentials" because the Encryption Extension is proprietary and costs $2000?[1]
... because as far as I can tell, most conversations do refer to SQLite as "open source" without always bringing up the encryption extension as a disclaimer in every online discussion. SQLite's creator, Richard Hipp, has a company selling a commercial license for the encryption add-on but it doesn't seem to tarnish the "open source" perception of SQLite.
The main way SQLite is used around the world is as a library component of a larger application. The main way people use VS code is through the proprietarized official build that uses the official EULA.
Also, lots of people seem to value the proprietary extensions a lot more than people value the encryption extension of SQLite.
The blog author complained about "Live Share" as one example. As far as I can tell, "Live Share" is not in the builds one downloads from Microsoft's "Visual Studio Code" website: https://code.visualstudio.com/download
The Live Share feature is downloaded from a separate web page: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=MS-vsliv...
This separation seems similar to SQLite Encryption Extension. Can someone explain how the situations are not analogous?
The github page for "Visual Studio Code" prominently displays "Open Source" in its title: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode
I'm willing to be convinced that it's a marketing deception and "open source" should be removed but so far, I haven't seen any precedent from other hybrid open/closed source projects justifying that.