6 ms·

I have a hard time getting excited about this when they have such an atrocious record of handling pull requests in VS Code already: https://github.com/microsoft

I have a hard time getting excited about this when they have such an atrocious record of handling pull requests in VS Code already: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/pulls https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/pulls

Alupis 1y ago
That's because it's Microsoft's Trademarked version of Open Source. All the good FOSS vibes, without any of the hard FOSS work...
- NewsaHackO 1y ago
  I hate this analogy. Just because something is open source, doesn’t mean it is forced to commit or comment on every pull request which takes development time. If that notion really bothers you, you are free to fork VSCode and close all 600 pull requests on your fork.
  - Alupis 1y ago
    It's a common theme across most (all?) Microsoft "Open Source" repos. They publish the codebase on Github (which implies a certain thing on it's own), but accept very little community input/contributions - if any. These repo's will usually have half a dozen or more Microsoft Employees with "Project Manager" titles and the like - extremely "top heavy". All development, decision making, roadmap and more are done behind closed doors. PR's go dormant for months or years... Issues get some sort of cursory "thanks for the input" response from a PM... then crickets. I'm not arguing all open source needs to be a community and accept contributions. But let's be honest - this is deliberate on Microsoft's part. They want the "good vibes" of being open source friendly - but corporate Microsoft still isn't ready to embrace open source. ie, it's fake open source.
    - almosthere 1y ago
      f. o. r. k. everything costs money, waaaay more than a $5 buy me a coffee. Every PR MS closes costs them thousands of dollars.
    - cyral 1y ago
      I've looked at a bunch of the popular JS libraries I depend on and they are all the same story, hundreds of open PRs. I think it's just difficult to review work from random people who may not be implementing changes the right way at all. Same with the project direction/roadmap, I'd say the majority of open source repos are like that. People will suggest ideas/direction all day and you can't listen to everyone. Not sure for VSCode, but for .NET 9 they claim: "There were over 26,000 contributions from over 9,000 community members! "
    - __jonas 1y ago
      Why is that bad? Seems like a perfectly valid approach for an Open Source project, SQLite is doing the same.
  - almosthere 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - jemiluv8 1y ago
    Agree. OSS is hard work and not obligatory.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- bmitc 1y ago
  Out of Apple, Google, and Microsoft, Microsoft is _by far_ the most active and open to open source and contributions.
msgodel 1y ago
It looks to me like they close nearly 30 PRs every day. That's kind of amazing. I'm no fan of Microsoft but that's a massive maintenance burden. They must have multiple people working on this full time.
- Alupis 1y ago
  If you examine the merged PR's - the overwhelming majority are from Microsoft employees. Meanwhile, community contributions sit and rot.
  - jemiluv8 1y ago
    I thought they just open sourced this? Was there enough time to start reviewing community contributions?
  - esperent 1y ago
    How would I be able to examine the PRs to verify this?
    - lozenge 1y ago
      Look at the first comment in the PR, it will have a badge "This user is a member of the Microsoft organization". Alternatively, look at the release notes on the website, any non-Microsoft contributions are listed at the bottom.
      - esperent 1y ago
        Right, but how to do that for thousands of PRs to see that there's a bias? I assume it's a ton of work.
        xyzzy123 1y ago
        Why not sample 20 and see if you can spot a trend?
tomnipotent 1y ago
I'm not sure I see the problem. The number of merged PR's looks on the high side for a FOSS project. https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclo...
lozenge 1y ago
I've had a lot of PRs merged. If you don't create an issue or the issue already says it doesn't suit their vision then it won't get merged. It also helps to update the PR in November/December, even if there are no merge conflicts, as that's when they "clean up" and try to close as many as possible.

Alupis 1y ago

That's because it's Microsoft's Trademarked version of Open Source. All the good FOSS vibes, without any of the hard FOSS work...

NewsaHackO 1y ago
I hate this analogy. Just because something is open source, doesn’t mean it is forced to commit or comment on every pull request which takes development time. If that notion really bothers you, you are free to fork VSCode and close all 600 pull requests on your fork.
- Alupis 1y ago
  It's a common theme across most (all?) Microsoft "Open Source" repos. They publish the codebase on Github (which implies a certain thing on it's own), but accept very little community input/contributions - if any. These repo's will usually have half a dozen or more Microsoft Employees with "Project Manager" titles and the like - extremely "top heavy". All development, decision making, roadmap and more are done behind closed doors. PR's go dormant for months or years... Issues get some sort of cursory "thanks for the input" response from a PM... then crickets. I'm not arguing all open source needs to be a community and accept contributions. But let's be honest - this is deliberate on Microsoft's part. They want the "good vibes" of being open source friendly - but corporate Microsoft still isn't ready to embrace open source. ie, it's fake open source.
  - almosthere 1y ago
    f. o. r. k. everything costs money, waaaay more than a $5 buy me a coffee. Every PR MS closes costs them thousands of dollars.
  - cyral 1y ago
    I've looked at a bunch of the popular JS libraries I depend on and they are all the same story, hundreds of open PRs. I think it's just difficult to review work from random people who may not be implementing changes the right way at all. Same with the project direction/roadmap, I'd say the majority of open source repos are like that. People will suggest ideas/direction all day and you can't listen to everyone. Not sure for VSCode, but for .NET 9 they claim: "There were over 26,000 contributions from over 9,000 community members! "
  - __jonas 1y ago
    Why is that bad? Seems like a perfectly valid approach for an Open Source project, SQLite is doing the same.
- almosthere 1y ago
  [flagged]
- jemiluv8 1y ago
  Agree. OSS is hard work and not obligatory.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
bmitc 1y ago
Out of Apple, Google, and Microsoft, Microsoft is _by far_ the most active and open to open source and contributions.

msgodel 1y ago

It looks to me like they close nearly 30 PRs every day. That's kind of amazing. I'm no fan of Microsoft but that's a massive maintenance burden. They must have multiple people working on this full time.

Alupis 1y ago
If you examine the merged PR's - the overwhelming majority are from Microsoft employees. Meanwhile, community contributions sit and rot.
- jemiluv8 1y ago
  I thought they just open sourced this? Was there enough time to start reviewing community contributions?
- esperent 1y ago
  How would I be able to examine the PRs to verify this?
  - lozenge 1y ago
    Look at the first comment in the PR, it will have a badge "This user is a member of the Microsoft organization". Alternatively, look at the release notes on the website, any non-Microsoft contributions are listed at the bottom.
    - esperent 1y ago
      Right, but how to do that for thousands of PRs to see that there's a bias? I assume it's a ton of work.
      - xyzzy123 1y ago
        Why not sample 20 and see if you can spot a trend?

tomnipotent 1y ago

I'm not sure I see the problem. The number of merged PR's looks on the high side for a FOSS project. https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclo...

lozenge 1y ago

I've had a lot of PRs merged. If you don't create an issue or the issue already says it doesn't suit their vision then it won't get merged. It also helps to update the PR in November/December, even if there are no merge conflicts, as that's when they "clean up" and try to close as many as possible.