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This is a good summary of the playing field, but I think they're way overblowing the panic In summary Microsoft has: - Made an incredibly good web-based code

This is a good summary of the playing field, but I think they're way overblowing the panic In summary Microsoft has: - Made an incredibly good web-based code editor which is 100% OSS, no strings attached - Made an extensions repository and a bunch of really high quality first-party extensions that have restricted licenses Sure, in a perfect world the whole thing would be fully OSS. But in the worst-case, where people some day decide they want to fork or whatever, we're still much better off than before VSCode. The editor project is a net gain, even if forking means building some of the other bits yourself. This is still a net increase in value for everyone- even if you exclude the restricted parts; not a decrease, much less an apocalypse.

015a 4y ago
I'm not quite as sure. To me, its kind of like saying "well, we don't have to worry about global warming, oil is awesome and if it gets too bad we always have Mars". Which, I can explain a little bit because that analogy maybe only make sense in my head. I can't think of very many, if any, examples in computing history where a project, open source or not, followed the path of "dominating a domain" -> "sponsor does something crappy" -> "the community rallies around a fork" -> "the fork becomes a dominating force in its domain". I'm really sitting here trying to think of examples to help disprove this thesis, and would love to hear them. LibreOffice may be a good example. I can also see an argument for Oracle/proprietary SQL vs MySQL/Postgres. The NodeJS/iojs situation from years ago is, I think, a hallmark case-study in open source that more-so skips the "rally around the fork" step, but is nonetheless worth mentioning. There's probably dozens of examples in the "random esoteric npm library" domain, but those aren't hitting a thousandth the scale that the gigaprojects like VSCode do. There's a far more common path for projects, however. I'll pick on MongoDB as an example; they did something kind of crappy, with their GPL-wearing-a-trenchcoat-proprietary license which, in my experience, all but killed the database for some companies I've contracted with. These companies (users) took that opportunity to move to a truly open source solution, like MySQL. The move, in all cases, was long; arduous; cost a lot of development time; and they were happy in the end. Circling back to the metaphor; there's a hypothetical migration path for anything. Its near-laughably trivial to even list that as a triaging factor for "well, they could be evil, they could turn evil, burning oil could destroy our planet, but at least we have Mars." Computers are turing machines, anything can be rebuilt. That's not the point. If we opt in to an environment which is only deemed acceptable because of a Plan B, it behooves anyone with investment in that environment to think critically about the probability of being forced to implement Plan B, and the cost of that implementation. Circling back to the examples: one is behooved to analyze this through the lens that Plan B may not be the Plan B one thinks it is. If VSCode jumps the shark; will vscodium take its place? MongoDB jumped the shark, and no one was there to catch it; those people who were left wading in the water had to invest significant engineering time transitioning to something entirely different. VSCode is more than just Code; its the users, its the marketing, its the trademark, its the extension standards, its the governing body, maturity, maybe even patents, its all these things which vscodium does not have.
- nirimda 4y ago
  > I can't think of very many, if any, examples in computing history where a project, open source or not, followed the path of "dominating a domain" -> "sponsor does something crappy" -> "the community rallies around a fork" -> "the fork becomes a dominating force in its domain". In addition to LibreOffice which you mention, once upon a time the classic example was GCC vs EGCS; the fork was so successful that it became the original thing. It might be harder to consider Firefox an example, since Chrome has taken over, but it was also a fork of Mozilla because Mozilla was too heavy under the weight of Netscape-mandated legacy features. The X.org fork of XFree86 took over because the project behind XFree86 brought in a licence that was not GPL compatible. In only one of these cases was the sponsor a for-profit company - and it was basically dead - but I think that's because it's a fundamentally recent phenomenon that for-profit companies feel free to release their source code under a free licence. There just hasn't been the time. It takes time to develop a good project, attract a generation of users who take it as the norm, betray trust and motivated people to fork. If the time wasn't there, then they might just pick up what they'd used before or develop something genuinely new.
zozbot234 4y ago
> but I think they're way overblowing the panic I think some concern is warranted simply because few people are aware that the default VS Code distribution has spyware and proprietary addons in it, and you do need to use something else if you prefer a fully FLOSS ecosystem.
- brundolf 4y ago
  I didn't know the addons were proprietary, so I was glad to learn about that But I think anybody who even knows what FLOSS means would know to at least do some research before installing an application from Microsoft if that's something they're worried about All in all, I still don't see a reason for panic. The author makes it sound like Microsoft is going to kill the entire open-source editor ecosystem and prevent anybody from ever creating an alternative to their worse and worse "venus flytrap" of a tool. I just don't see a pathway to that.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  I love how some of the haters suggest using JetBrains products instead, as if they were any different.
RobotToaster 4y ago
With microsoft's history of "embrace, extend, extinguish", I don't think it's possible to overblow it.
themenomen 4y ago
> Made an incredibly good web-based code editor which is 100% OSS, no strings attached You know, except for handling over that juicy telemetry data!
- skybrian 4y ago
  Yes, that is sort of a string attached, but I’m not sure it has any real cost. Has anyone ever been harmed or even inconvenienced by VS Code telemetry? I usually turn it off, but it doesn’t actually make any difference to me. Seems like it’s just politics.
- brundolf 4y ago
  No- the core editor tech, Monaco, is its own thing (and is one of the most difficult and valuable parts of the project)

015a 4y ago

I'm not quite as sure. To me, its kind of like saying "well, we don't have to worry about global warming, oil is awesome and if it gets too bad we always have Mars". Which, I can explain a little bit because that analogy maybe only make sense in my head. I can't think of very many, if any, examples in computing history where a project, open source or not, followed the path of "dominating a domain" -> "sponsor does something crappy" -> "the community rallies around a fork" -> "the fork becomes a dominating force in its domain". I'm really sitting here trying to think of examples to help disprove this thesis, and would love to hear them. LibreOffice may be a good example. I can also see an argument for Oracle/proprietary SQL vs MySQL/Postgres. The NodeJS/iojs situation from years ago is, I think, a hallmark case-study in open source that more-so skips the "rally around the fork" step, but is nonetheless worth mentioning. There's probably dozens of examples in the "random esoteric npm library" domain, but those aren't hitting a thousandth the scale that the gigaprojects like VSCode do. There's a far more common path for projects, however. I'll pick on MongoDB as an example; they did something kind of crappy, with their GPL-wearing-a-trenchcoat-proprietary license which, in my experience, all but killed the database for some companies I've contracted with. These companies (users) took that opportunity to move to a truly open source solution, like MySQL. The move, in all cases, was long; arduous; cost a lot of development time; and they were happy in the end. Circling back to the metaphor; there's a hypothetical migration path for anything. Its near-laughably trivial to even list that as a triaging factor for "well, they could be evil, they could turn evil, burning oil could destroy our planet, but at least we have Mars." Computers are turing machines, anything can be rebuilt. That's not the point. If we opt in to an environment which is only deemed acceptable because of a Plan B, it behooves anyone with investment in that environment to think critically about the probability of being forced to implement Plan B, and the cost of that implementation. Circling back to the examples: one is behooved to analyze this through the lens that Plan B may not be the Plan B one thinks it is. If VSCode jumps the shark; will vscodium take its place? MongoDB jumped the shark, and no one was there to catch it; those people who were left wading in the water had to invest significant engineering time transitioning to something entirely different. VSCode is more than just Code; its the users, its the marketing, its the trademark, its the extension standards, its the governing body, maturity, maybe even patents, its all these things which vscodium does not have.

nirimda 4y ago
> I can't think of very many, if any, examples in computing history where a project, open source or not, followed the path of "dominating a domain" -> "sponsor does something crappy" -> "the community rallies around a fork" -> "the fork becomes a dominating force in its domain". In addition to LibreOffice which you mention, once upon a time the classic example was GCC vs EGCS; the fork was so successful that it became the original thing. It might be harder to consider Firefox an example, since Chrome has taken over, but it was also a fork of Mozilla because Mozilla was too heavy under the weight of Netscape-mandated legacy features. The X.org fork of XFree86 took over because the project behind XFree86 brought in a licence that was not GPL compatible. In only one of these cases was the sponsor a for-profit company - and it was basically dead - but I think that's because it's a fundamentally recent phenomenon that for-profit companies feel free to release their source code under a free licence. There just hasn't been the time. It takes time to develop a good project, attract a generation of users who take it as the norm, betray trust and motivated people to fork. If the time wasn't there, then they might just pick up what they'd used before or develop something genuinely new.

zozbot234 4y ago

> but I think they're way overblowing the panic I think some concern is warranted simply because few people are aware that the default VS Code distribution has spyware and proprietary addons in it, and you do need to use something else if you prefer a fully FLOSS ecosystem.

brundolf 4y ago
I didn't know the addons were proprietary, so I was glad to learn about that But I think anybody who even knows what FLOSS means would know to at least do some research before installing an application from Microsoft if that's something they're worried about All in all, I still don't see a reason for panic. The author makes it sound like Microsoft is going to kill the entire open-source editor ecosystem and prevent anybody from ever creating an alternative to their worse and worse "venus flytrap" of a tool. I just don't see a pathway to that.
pjmlp 4y ago
I love how some of the haters suggest using JetBrains products instead, as if they were any different.

RobotToaster 4y ago

With microsoft's history of "embrace, extend, extinguish", I don't think it's possible to overblow it.

themenomen 4y ago

> Made an incredibly good web-based code editor which is 100% OSS, no strings attached You know, except for handling over that juicy telemetry data!

skybrian 4y ago
Yes, that is sort of a string attached, but I’m not sure it has any real cost. Has anyone ever been harmed or even inconvenienced by VS Code telemetry? I usually turn it off, but it doesn’t actually make any difference to me. Seems like it’s just politics.
brundolf 4y ago
No- the core editor tech, Monaco, is its own thing (and is one of the most difficult and valuable parts of the project)