6 ms·
Is telemetry.telemetryLevel=off not enough? The setting claims it completely disables all telemetry.
by cabirum 4y ago
Is telemetry.telemetryLevel=off not enough? The setting claims it completely disables all telemetry.
- gabrielgio 4y agoThe binary license is different, and you can't reverse-engineer it. So it comes to whether you trust MS or not, which does not cut for some people that would like to run or trust only FOSS software.
- car_analogy 4y ago> The binary license is different, and you can't reverse-engineer it. Why not?
- gabrielgio 4y agoBecause the binary is under EULA, so you are not allowed to do so: https://code.visualstudio.com/license https://code.visualstudio.com/license > You may not reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the software, or otherwise attempt to derive the source code for the software Check `5. SCOPE OF LICENSE.` VSCodium fixes that, it removes all the proprietary bites and branding. The only downside is that, as far as I know, you can't access a plethora of tooling that would require the proprietary bits.
- car_analogy 4y agoIf they don't want us to find out what their software does (the definition of reverse-engineering), it's safe to assume it's malicious, or will be. Edit: In other words, if you bought a sandwich, and the EULA for that sandwich forbade you from examining what's in it, how it was prepared, and what effects it has on you health - would you eat that sandwich?
- zasdffaa 4y agoMic-ro-soft - enough said
- peoplefromibiza 4y agoyou might be surprised to know that food (for example bread) can't simply be reverse engineered by looking at the ingredients. many brands also use NDAs to protect their trade secrets, example: Coca Cola. So people who know about it, can't legally divulge what they know. It is the same with software, the only difference is that software can be reverse engineered and made indistinguishable from the original, while assuming we could reverse engineer Coke recipe, it would never be Coca Cola, because only Coca Cola can make Coca Cola. The EULA is probably simply protecting MS from VS Code clones, if they ate not authorized copies, MS is not responsible. It is probably standard when distributing code that is not open and can't be inspected.
- car_analogy 4y ago> The EULA is probably simply protecting MS from VS Code clones, if they ate not authorized copies, MS is not responsible. So you have some sort of source for the claim that, if one does not legally forbid reverse-engineering, they can be held "responsible" for unauthorized copies?
- peoplefromibiza 4y agohttps://reverseengineering.stackexchange.com/a/73 https://reverseengineering.stackexchange.com/a/73 Also of note is that in the U.S. most End-User License Agreements (EULAs) specifically prohibit reverse-engineering. Courts have found such contractual prohibitions to override the copyright law which expressly permits it (Bowers v. Baystate Technologies, 320 F.3d 1317 (Fed. Cir. 2003)). In other words, for your purposes, it sounds like it would be illegal to integrate features from a reverse-engineered program into another program for commercial or non-commercial use. If you were trying to enable interoperability (again, see Section 103(f), noted above), that would be different. The point is not the being responsible part, the point is that if they do not prohibit it the law permits it under certain circumstances. By explicitly denying it companies can claim plausible deniability. (not an expert, just my understanding)
- vasco 4y agoThere's no warranty so abiding by the EULA is meaningless. That's only there so Microsoft covers their ass because lawyers exist and they justify their salary by doing things that "reduce the probability of Microsoft getting sued". You can reverse engineer the binary all you want.
- numpad0 4y agoCopyrights can be enforced even for free products or for meritless motivations. Some thinks it only applies to paid IP or limited distributions but technically there’s no such requirement.
- parineum 4y agoWhat would enforcement look like in the case where someone reverse engineered the binary?
- pygy_ 4y agoI suppose they'd get their user license perpetually revoked and wouldn't be allowed to use VSCode legally. Good luck enforcing that. This is, if the EULA has legs. MS could have put that language to scare people off event though it doesn't have legal footing.
- dx034 4y agoProbably not allowing them to publish that information? However, if you can state general facts from how telemetry works without going into detail on how you got that information, I doubt they'll be able to convince a court that you did anything illegal. In the end, you can just monitor network traffic and verify telemetry is switched off that way.
- parineum 4y ago> Probably not allowing them to publish that information? That definitely falls under free speech in the United States. Look at DeCSS[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS
- jcelerier 4y agonever ask a woman, her age a man, his salary microsoft, how much of `$ strings ./code | grep HTML` are references to LGPL Blink class names
- eurasiantiger 4y agoIsn’t linking explicitly allowed by LGPL?
- jcelerier 4y agoIt's statically linked - which is fine, as long as they allow relinking of the LGPL parts and don't add any restrictions on those (which this EULA goes directly against)
- peoplefromibiza 4y agoextensions in vs code are different processes communications through some IPC exactly to avoid including or linking with OSS codebase they are in practice another application entirely.
- jve 4y agoObviously these builds are for purists and that's okay. The telemetry can be disabled and is documented https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/telemetry#_disable-telemetry-reporting https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/telemetry#_dis... Regarding "So it comes to whether you trust MS or not" - yeah, If you use Linux because you don't trust MS is okay, but running this on Windows because you don't trust MS... Useless. As to those who say: but telemetry is ON by default! Well, if such this is a concern to you and you find this build useful, then you most certainly know to check for this stuff.
- bachmeier 4y ago> Obviously these builds are for purists and that's okay. They're also for busy people. If you use these rather than the ones supplied by MS, you don't have to worry about what MS might try to slip in their next binary. I'd say it's more that the people using the MS binaries are the purists that want the "genuine thing" rather than just using VSCodium.
- moonchrome 4y agoYeah - what's more likely - random member of noncommercial OSS build slipping in something malicious or Microsoft doing the same ? Considering the recent NPM "activism" I'd take my chances with Microsoft.
- fartcannon 4y agoMicrosoft's telemetry frog boiling is malicious.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago> Yeah - what's more likely - random member of noncommercial OSS build slipping in something malicious or Microsoft doing the same ? Microsoft, the company that made Windows 10? Microsoft, the company that made Edge? Yeah, I'd trust a random maintainer on the internet over MS any day.
- remram 4y ago
- tiffanyh 4y agoDevils advocate: so why are you more trusting of these other binaries? Microsoft has reputational risk, if something nefarious are in these other binaries - no "organization" is really to blame.
- mekster 4y agoRMS fanboys need to attack big corps even when impractical.
- krono 4y agoNote that some extensions still only look for the old settings.
- mhio 4y agoI still see VSCode make connections to dc.services.visualstudio.com and az764295.vo.msecnd.net with telemetry and updates disabled. Github issues relate these connections to extension black lists and extension recommendations based on my workspace rather than specific "telemetry", but I doubt the pipelines at MS care about that distinction.
- NullPrefix 4y agoUntil some update randomly flips the value or starts using another setting with default=on value
- Drblessing 4y agoCan someone please explain telemetry data? Does this include location?