5 ms·

It's not. VSC is a packaged version of the open-source code with proprietary bits added. Integration with the plugin marketplace, telemetry, etc. VSCodium does

by pionar 4y ago

It's not. VSC is a packaged version of the open-source code with proprietary bits added. Integration with the plugin marketplace, telemetry, etc. VSCodium does not have that. In addition, a lot of the good language plugins are proprietary, like PyLance and the C# plugin.

joshmanders 4y ago
You're just being pedantic now. VSCodium exists because VSCode is FOSS. Your complaint is with the binary that Microsoft ships, not with the codebase.
- morelisp 4y ago
  Sounds to me like they've got sufficient fanboy mindshare to move fully into "extinguish" soon!
  - jmnicolas 4y ago
    Except Atom that is already dead, which IDE / editor are they going to extinguish?
- dijit 4y ago
  Parents complaint is that paying lip service to FOSS is exactly the "extend" part of "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish". A mantra that was famously internally coined at Microsoft[0], and was found during anti-monopoly proceedings. As such they will always be looked at skeptically when adding proprietary things to open source things. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
  - shkkmo 4y ago
    This doesn't really match since the "Embrace" part is different. The classic formula was "embracing" an established standard, making proprietary extensions to that standard, then using the adoption of those proprietary extensions to extinguish the original standard's market share. In this case, Microsoft didn't embrace an existing code base or standard, they made one and open sourced it. What would the analagous "extinction" bere here? That they eventually stop releasing updates to VSCode as open source? While I agree that there is good reason to doubt Microsoft's intention to be a good steward of an open source project, this seems less like another iteration of that playbook and more like what a lot of "open source" for-profit companies do where they have an open core but keep many features proprietary so they can't be easily forked.
    - otabdeveloper4 4y ago
      > What would the analagous "extinction" bere here? Look at Android and how it is almost impossible to de-Google it for a live demonstration. (I don't think there is a market for developer tools, though.)
      - shkkmo 4y ago
        There are several android distros that provide support for a de-googled installation. Calling it "impossible" seems like a bit of a stretch, though there are definitely limitations, even with microg installed. I do think that the VSCode model is much more similar to the Android model (though Android is a more extreme version of the model) than either is to the "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" model.
    - taeric 4y ago
      It is quite easy to see that the "embrace" is to release a core into the open source world. They embraced the idea of open source and released something, they extended the user base into the world of the non-free option. The thinking is if they can get a critical mass of folks onto the option that is non-free, they will extinguish the free option by no longer supporting it. And this is not much different from the things they did this with back in the day. Used to, you wouldn't target open source, as much as you would student audience. The battle used to be more over what corporate workforces would want and use. The open source development scene changed that a bit. Though, it is kind of... interesting to consider how many tools and ideas have been lost in that process.
      - shkkmo 4y ago
        > The thinking is if they can get a critical mass of folks onto the option that is non-free, they will extinguish the free option by no longer supporting it. I assume you mean "non-free" as in speech, not beer, since VSCode is free. Hasn't that "critical mass" been the case since day one? I can't imagine that VSCodium built binaries have ever had more than a tiny fraction of the user-base of VSCode? Thus I don't see how "Extinquish" plays a role here. I still think it makes more sense to think of the strategy as more akin to the FOSS-washing / freemium models used by many companies.
andrew_ 4y ago
And vscode core isn't without its issues, it's not straightforward to fork and build without running into userspace issues: https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues
LordDragonfang 4y ago
> Integration with the plugin marketplace This is a big one. A lot of the value of VSCode comes from its plugins, and M$ doesn't allow VSCodium to access them.
- thiht 4y ago
  https://open-vsx.org https://open-vsx.org https://open-vsx.org/extension/sugatoray/vscode-remotework-extension-pack https://open-vsx.org/extension/sugatoray/vscode-remotework-e... https://open-vsx.org/extension/ms-python/python https://open-vsx.org/extension/ms-python/python
cstejerean 4y ago
So it's time for the community to step up and write good (or even better) versions of those plugins? On the one hand sure I wish Microsoft open sourced more, at the same time what they already open sourced is a fantastic foundation for building upon. Instead of having to write an open source IDE from scratch we can leverage this one and then implement a few plugins for popular languages.

by pionar 4y ago

joshmanders 4y ago

You're just being pedantic now. VSCodium exists because VSCode is FOSS. Your complaint is with the binary that Microsoft ships, not with the codebase.

morelisp 4y ago
Sounds to me like they've got sufficient fanboy mindshare to move fully into "extinguish" soon!
- jmnicolas 4y ago
  Except Atom that is already dead, which IDE / editor are they going to extinguish?
dijit 4y ago
Parents complaint is that paying lip service to FOSS is exactly the "extend" part of "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish". A mantra that was famously internally coined at Microsoft[0], and was found during anti-monopoly proceedings. As such they will always be looked at skeptically when adding proprietary things to open source things. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
- shkkmo 4y ago
  This doesn't really match since the "Embrace" part is different. The classic formula was "embracing" an established standard, making proprietary extensions to that standard, then using the adoption of those proprietary extensions to extinguish the original standard's market share. In this case, Microsoft didn't embrace an existing code base or standard, they made one and open sourced it. What would the analagous "extinction" bere here? That they eventually stop releasing updates to VSCode as open source? While I agree that there is good reason to doubt Microsoft's intention to be a good steward of an open source project, this seems less like another iteration of that playbook and more like what a lot of "open source" for-profit companies do where they have an open core but keep many features proprietary so they can't be easily forked.
  - otabdeveloper4 4y ago
    > What would the analagous "extinction" bere here? Look at Android and how it is almost impossible to de-Google it for a live demonstration. (I don't think there is a market for developer tools, though.)
    - shkkmo 4y ago
      There are several android distros that provide support for a de-googled installation. Calling it "impossible" seems like a bit of a stretch, though there are definitely limitations, even with microg installed. I do think that the VSCode model is much more similar to the Android model (though Android is a more extreme version of the model) than either is to the "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" model.
  - taeric 4y ago
    It is quite easy to see that the "embrace" is to release a core into the open source world. They embraced the idea of open source and released something, they extended the user base into the world of the non-free option. The thinking is if they can get a critical mass of folks onto the option that is non-free, they will extinguish the free option by no longer supporting it. And this is not much different from the things they did this with back in the day. Used to, you wouldn't target open source, as much as you would student audience. The battle used to be more over what corporate workforces would want and use. The open source development scene changed that a bit. Though, it is kind of... interesting to consider how many tools and ideas have been lost in that process.
    - shkkmo 4y ago
      > The thinking is if they can get a critical mass of folks onto the option that is non-free, they will extinguish the free option by no longer supporting it. I assume you mean "non-free" as in speech, not beer, since VSCode is free. Hasn't that "critical mass" been the case since day one? I can't imagine that VSCodium built binaries have ever had more than a tiny fraction of the user-base of VSCode? Thus I don't see how "Extinquish" plays a role here. I still think it makes more sense to think of the strategy as more akin to the FOSS-washing / freemium models used by many companies.

andrew_ 4y ago

And vscode core isn't without its issues, it's not straightforward to fork and build without running into userspace issues: https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues

LordDragonfang 4y ago

> Integration with the plugin marketplace This is a big one. A lot of the value of VSCode comes from its plugins, and M$ doesn't allow VSCodium to access them.

thiht 4y ago
https://open-vsx.org https://open-vsx.org https://open-vsx.org/extension/sugatoray/vscode-remotework-extension-pack https://open-vsx.org/extension/sugatoray/vscode-remotework-e... https://open-vsx.org/extension/ms-python/python https://open-vsx.org/extension/ms-python/python

cstejerean 4y ago

So it's time for the community to step up and write good (or even better) versions of those plugins? On the one hand sure I wish Microsoft open sourced more, at the same time what they already open sourced is a fantastic foundation for building upon. Instead of having to write an open source IDE from scratch we can leverage this one and then implement a few plugins for popular languages.