3 ms·

What exactly is it you are saying they are embracing, extending or extinguishing here?

dmm 5y ago
vscode is open source but many of the most interesting features are proprietary, making the use of anything but the official build impossible for many use cases. A few weeks ago I investigated using an embedded version of vscode to create containerized dev environments for an internal developer platform we're working on. The hope was to allow devs to write and debug code from inside a k8s container by using vscode inside their browser. Very similar to the newly announced codespaces feature. Unfortunately, there were several factors that made this impractical. The extension marketplace can only be used with the official build. There are at least two alternatives but both were missing extensions that our devs used. Also, the c# debugger is proprietary and only works with official vscode build. From that experience I believe that while the core editor features of vscode are open source, "Visual Studio Code" the tool that people actually use is defacto proprietary and entirely controlled by Microsoft.
- user-the-name 5y ago
  None of which has anything to do with "embrace, extend, extinguish". That just means they are not wanting to fully commit to open sourcing their own editor.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    It has everything to do with it. Their open-sourcing stuff is just the modern form of the "embrace", and that open-sourcing being only partial is the very epitome of "extend". The "extinguish" is obviously yet to come, but turning a blind eye to it certainly won't help stave it off. And trying to fog others' vision to it is... Less than a good look.
Zababa 5y ago
Open source development, starting with Javascript/Typescript. Microsoft own Typescript, VSCode, Github, Azure and NPM. It's not hard to imagine in the future an online dev environment that works with all of these technologies together. But this environment won't have an open source counterpart. Embrace: Buy Github, NPM, develop VScode, Typescript, Azure. Extend & extinguish: make all of them work together really well in a way that can't be reproduce by the open soure community. I think it's a bit early to say that they are embracing and extinguishing at this point, but I wasn't here last time and may be biaised because I find these tools incredibly convenient. In a way, Microsoft is leveraging their unique advantage over other cloud vendors, which is their proximity with developers.
- user-the-name 5y ago
  What is the "extinguish" part?
  - Zababa 5y ago
    According to Wikipedia: "Extinguish: When extensions become a de facto standard because of their dominant market share, they marginalize competitors that do not or cannot support the new extensions." So if your text editor doesn't support integration with Github and a cloud vendor, or if your repositories don't support integration with an online text editor and a cloud vendor, or if your cloud vendor doesn't support integration with Github and an online text editor, this will affect your market share. I think the end goal is around "developer mindshare" (which, I admit, is a really vague concept), especially in web applications. By assembling all that they have, they can create an experience no one else can, all while leveraging open source tools. You could also imagine an integration with education (Github student pack, Azure credits, etc). At this point, they could dominate the web app market because no one else can offer such a deep integration across the stack. I think one of the differences with the "old" EEE would be that instead of intentionally crippling certain features, they are instead focusing on giving the best-in-class experience. If you consider that it's just regular competition and not EEE because of that, that's totally fair. Still, I think that we should still be wary of domination. Competition is what's pushing Microsoft to develop all those wonderful tools, and I fear that with domination they might become complacent and abuse their position.
CRConrad 5y ago
The PC; the whole idea of a universe of independent microcomputers. Microsoft, Amazon, Google (and Facebook?) each have their own angle on it, but seem to be moving towards the same goal: a return to the old model of centralised computing, with the Web as the substrate, your "PC" reduced to a graphical terminal, and their servers as the mainframe. The difference in angles is partly just that they each want their servers to be the main mainframe, not those of one of the others; and partly because they're each coming at it from different directions, each trying to play off of their own strengths. But the goal and direction? All absolutely the same. The best we can hope for (if I'm being pessimistic) is probably that none of them wins outright, but instead we get a shaky balance between as many as possible of them.

dmm 5y ago

vscode is open source but many of the most interesting features are proprietary, making the use of anything but the official build impossible for many use cases. A few weeks ago I investigated using an embedded version of vscode to create containerized dev environments for an internal developer platform we're working on. The hope was to allow devs to write and debug code from inside a k8s container by using vscode inside their browser. Very similar to the newly announced codespaces feature. Unfortunately, there were several factors that made this impractical. The extension marketplace can only be used with the official build. There are at least two alternatives but both were missing extensions that our devs used. Also, the c# debugger is proprietary and only works with official vscode build. From that experience I believe that while the core editor features of vscode are open source, "Visual Studio Code" the tool that people actually use is defacto proprietary and entirely controlled by Microsoft.

user-the-name 5y ago
None of which has anything to do with "embrace, extend, extinguish". That just means they are not wanting to fully commit to open sourcing their own editor.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  It has everything to do with it. Their open-sourcing stuff is just the modern form of the "embrace", and that open-sourcing being only partial is the very epitome of "extend". The "extinguish" is obviously yet to come, but turning a blind eye to it certainly won't help stave it off. And trying to fog others' vision to it is... Less than a good look.

Zababa 5y ago

Open source development, starting with Javascript/Typescript. Microsoft own Typescript, VSCode, Github, Azure and NPM. It's not hard to imagine in the future an online dev environment that works with all of these technologies together. But this environment won't have an open source counterpart. Embrace: Buy Github, NPM, develop VScode, Typescript, Azure. Extend & extinguish: make all of them work together really well in a way that can't be reproduce by the open soure community. I think it's a bit early to say that they are embracing and extinguishing at this point, but I wasn't here last time and may be biaised because I find these tools incredibly convenient. In a way, Microsoft is leveraging their unique advantage over other cloud vendors, which is their proximity with developers.

user-the-name 5y ago
What is the "extinguish" part?
- Zababa 5y ago
  According to Wikipedia: "Extinguish: When extensions become a de facto standard because of their dominant market share, they marginalize competitors that do not or cannot support the new extensions." So if your text editor doesn't support integration with Github and a cloud vendor, or if your repositories don't support integration with an online text editor and a cloud vendor, or if your cloud vendor doesn't support integration with Github and an online text editor, this will affect your market share. I think the end goal is around "developer mindshare" (which, I admit, is a really vague concept), especially in web applications. By assembling all that they have, they can create an experience no one else can, all while leveraging open source tools. You could also imagine an integration with education (Github student pack, Azure credits, etc). At this point, they could dominate the web app market because no one else can offer such a deep integration across the stack. I think one of the differences with the "old" EEE would be that instead of intentionally crippling certain features, they are instead focusing on giving the best-in-class experience. If you consider that it's just regular competition and not EEE because of that, that's totally fair. Still, I think that we should still be wary of domination. Competition is what's pushing Microsoft to develop all those wonderful tools, and I fear that with domination they might become complacent and abuse their position.

CRConrad 5y ago

The PC; the whole idea of a universe of independent microcomputers. Microsoft, Amazon, Google (and Facebook?) each have their own angle on it, but seem to be moving towards the same goal: a return to the old model of centralised computing, with the Web as the substrate, your "PC" reduced to a graphical terminal, and their servers as the mainframe. The difference in angles is partly just that they each want their servers to be the main mainframe, not those of one of the others; and partly because they're each coming at it from different directions, each trying to play off of their own strengths. But the goal and direction? All absolutely the same. The best we can hope for (if I'm being pessimistic) is probably that none of them wins outright, but instead we get a shaky balance between as many as possible of them.