4 ms·

A bunch of the plugins. The C/C++, Python, and Remote Development plugins are all closed source, IIRC.

by bsder 4y ago

gabrielgio 4y ago
I wonder what is the benefit from from keeping that closed source. Editor lock or something?
- alex_smart 4y ago
  The remote development plugin in particular is potentially very commericially valueable.
- lozenge 4y ago
  GitHub Codespaces is a paid service and they don't want any competition. Charging for Visual Studio every two years is old hat. Charging companies for their IDE by the developer-hour, now that's Thinking With Cloud.
- ghuntley 4y ago
  See also https://isdotnetopen.com https://isdotnetopen.com
- IshKebab 4y ago
  Partly. They've also said that they used some code from Visual Studio in some of it so I guess getting corporate permission to open it is not trivial. For the Python one at least it's not as bad as it sounds - the Pylance extension is closed source but the core type checker Pyright is open source (and much much better than MyPy).
Ontonator 4y ago
Both the C/C++ and Python extensions seem to be open source, but I think you’re right about the remote development one. https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-cpptools https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-cpptools https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-python https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-python
- kerneloops 4y ago
- Karliss 4y ago
  While part of the C/C++ extension is MIT licensed. At runtime the extension downloads binary blobs which have a lot more restrictive license. See https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/tree/main/RuntimeLicenses https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/tree/main/Runti... . This effectively makes it illegal to use the extension in non official Visual Studio Code builds like VSCodium. The situation is similar with C# extension. There are alternative non Microsoft language servers for C++ and probably other languages which are fully open source and can be used in open source VSCode builds. But unfortunately some extensions depend specifically on the Microsoft language support extensions. For example Platform IO can't be published on OpenVSX due to this. https://github.com/platformio/platformio-vscode-ide/issues/1802 https://github.com/platformio/platformio-vscode-ide/issues/1... . Similar with Unity debugger extension depending on microsoft C# extension.
  - sschueller 4y ago
    There is a workaround for PlatformIO that I use to get it to work in VSCodium: https://github.com/platformio/platformio-vscode-ide/issues/1886#issuecomment-1003719317 https://github.com/platformio/platformio-vscode-ide/issues/1...
    - Karliss 4y ago
      What's the point of using open source build of VScode with all the proprietary Microsoft stuff removed just to later install the same the binary blobs manually? If you are fine with that might as well run the official Microsoft VSCode build the normal way. Having some of the telemetry removed in VSCodium doesn't automatically remove it from the microsoft extensions. Taking into account that the official way for disabling telemetry in microsoft extensions depend on the telemetry setting in VSCode itself, having unsupported(and forbidden by microsoft license terms) combination of extension with vscodium seems like higher chance of disabling mechanism partially failing. As for PlatformIO, luckily at least the project compilation and toolchain setup (which is the most important part of PlatformIO) can be done with commandline tool independently of any editor extension.
ghuntley 4y ago
Yes, this is very concerning. I'm glad that other people are starting to notice this trend of closed extension tooling and product choices such as the Docker extension only supporting Azure registries for example.. ;-)
wilsonnb3 4y ago
the C# debugger in the C# plugin is also closed source and refuses to run on non-Microsoft builds. There is a C# extension that replaces it with an open source debugger, though.

A bunch of the plugins. The C/C++, Python, and Remote Development plugins are all closed source, IIRC.

by bsder 4y ago

A bunch of the plugins. The C/C++, Python, and Remote Development plugins are all closed source, IIRC.

gabrielgio 4y ago

I wonder what is the benefit from from keeping that closed source. Editor lock or something?

alex_smart 4y ago
The remote development plugin in particular is potentially very commericially valueable.
lozenge 4y ago
GitHub Codespaces is a paid service and they don't want any competition. Charging for Visual Studio every two years is old hat. Charging companies for their IDE by the developer-hour, now that's Thinking With Cloud.
ghuntley 4y ago
See also https://isdotnetopen.com https://isdotnetopen.com
IshKebab 4y ago
Partly. They've also said that they used some code from Visual Studio in some of it so I guess getting corporate permission to open it is not trivial. For the Python one at least it's not as bad as it sounds - the Pylance extension is closed source but the core type checker Pyright is open source (and much much better than MyPy).

Ontonator 4y ago

Both the C/C++ and Python extensions seem to be open source, but I think you’re right about the remote development one. https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-cpptools https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-cpptools https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-python https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-python

kerneloops 4y ago
Karliss 4y ago
While part of the C/C++ extension is MIT licensed. At runtime the extension downloads binary blobs which have a lot more restrictive license. See https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/tree/main/RuntimeLicenses https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/tree/main/Runti... . This effectively makes it illegal to use the extension in non official Visual Studio Code builds like VSCodium. The situation is similar with C# extension. There are alternative non Microsoft language servers for C++ and probably other languages which are fully open source and can be used in open source VSCode builds. But unfortunately some extensions depend specifically on the Microsoft language support extensions. For example Platform IO can't be published on OpenVSX due to this. https://github.com/platformio/platformio-vscode-ide/issues/1802 https://github.com/platformio/platformio-vscode-ide/issues/1... . Similar with Unity debugger extension depending on microsoft C# extension.
- sschueller 4y ago
  There is a workaround for PlatformIO that I use to get it to work in VSCodium: https://github.com/platformio/platformio-vscode-ide/issues/1886#issuecomment-1003719317 https://github.com/platformio/platformio-vscode-ide/issues/1...
  - Karliss 4y ago
    What's the point of using open source build of VScode with all the proprietary Microsoft stuff removed just to later install the same the binary blobs manually? If you are fine with that might as well run the official Microsoft VSCode build the normal way. Having some of the telemetry removed in VSCodium doesn't automatically remove it from the microsoft extensions. Taking into account that the official way for disabling telemetry in microsoft extensions depend on the telemetry setting in VSCode itself, having unsupported(and forbidden by microsoft license terms) combination of extension with vscodium seems like higher chance of disabling mechanism partially failing. As for PlatformIO, luckily at least the project compilation and toolchain setup (which is the most important part of PlatformIO) can be done with commandline tool independently of any editor extension.

ghuntley 4y ago

Yes, this is very concerning. I'm glad that other people are starting to notice this trend of closed extension tooling and product choices such as the Docker extension only supporting Azure registries for example.. ;-)

wilsonnb3 4y ago

the C# debugger in the C# plugin is also closed source and refuses to run on non-Microsoft builds. There is a C# extension that replaces it with an open source debugger, though.