> Visual Studio Code has also some official extensions that are not open source and the official build contains a few proprietary features by default.

I don't understand how that is remotely ok. VSCode's main binary links statically against Blink (as it uses Electron) which is under LGPL, at the very minimum they should provide a way to relink that binary as per LGPL requirements.

I don't think there s a static linking going on there, else it would be impossible to use Electron for closed source software. Though it is used for things like Discord.

> I don't think there s a static linking going on there, else it would be impossible to use Electron for closed source software.

no, the closed source part can stay closed source but relinking against a custom version of Blink must be allowed.

Just run "strings" on the code binary: you'll see symbols coming straight from Blink like this one: https://github.com/chromium/chromium/blob/72ceeed2ebcd505b8d...

    $ strings code-insiders | grep HTMLFormControls
    HTMLFormControlsCollection

Are those symbols defined in that file, or is that an import reference from a library? What does (your platform's equivalent of) nm or ldd say?

it only links against basic Linux / X11 / GTK stuff (and, I mean, at 123 megabytes, there's not much doubt that there's chromium inside that binary)

    $ objdump -p  /opt/visual-studio-code-insiders/code-insiders | grep NEEDED
     NEEDED               libffmpeg.so
     NEEDED               libdl.so.2
     NEEDED               libpthread.so.0
     NEEDED               librt.so.1
     NEEDED               libgobject-2.0.so.0
     NEEDED               libglib-2.0.so.0
     NEEDED               libxshmfence.so.1
     NEEDED               libgio-2.0.so.0
     NEEDED               libnss3.so
     NEEDED               libnssutil3.so
     NEEDED               libsmime3.so
     NEEDED               libnspr4.so
     NEEDED               libatk-1.0.so.0
     NEEDED               libatk-bridge-2.0.so.0
     NEEDED               libdbus-1.so.3
     NEEDED               libdrm.so.2
     NEEDED               libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so.0
     NEEDED               libgtk-3.so.0
     NEEDED               libgdk-3.so.0
     NEEDED               libpango-1.0.so.0
     NEEDED               libcairo.so.2
     NEEDED               libm.so.6
     NEEDED               libX11.so.6
     NEEDED               libXcomposite.so.1
     NEEDED               libXdamage.so.1
     NEEDED               libXext.so.6
     NEEDED               libXfixes.so.3
     NEEDED               libXrandr.so.2
     NEEDED               libexpat.so.1
     NEEDED               libxcb.so.1
     NEEDED               libxkbcommon.so.0
     NEEDED               libgbm.so.1
     NEEDED               libasound.so.2
     NEEDED               libatspi.so.0
     NEEDED               libgcc_s.so.1
     NEEDED               libc.so.6
     NEEDED               ld-linux-x86-64.so.2

Interesting, thanks for checking.

VSCodium is a build that does not include any of the proprietary bits: https://vscodium.com/

Unfortunately there are extensions & features that (last I checked) only work in VSCode but not VSCodium. 'Remote Development' extension was the one I found out was apparently closed source.

That one is based on "proper" VisualStudio's remote development features, so it originated from a closed source product. Having observed that multiple times, I assume that open sourcing it is a major effort as this probably includes some third party code or patent licenses or something which prevent open sourcing. At least I don't see the business case Microsoft would play there in keeping it closed but freely available.

But who knows.

And: That aside the role Microsoft nowadays plays in the open source world is reason for concern, while their current actions are mostly positive.

The business case is a combination of Discretionary Pricing, and Moat - those are the business school names for the strategies you can look up if you like..

The Discretionary pricing comes in the Tiers, while the Moat is provided by VS Code reducing the chance of real competition against Tier 1 or 2.

The removal of hot reload from VS Code is to provide differentiation between Tier 2 & 3, to drive customers to paid versions.

--

Tier 1 .. Visual Studio Enterprise - expensive

Tier 2 .. Visual Studio - low medium cost for a business

Tier 3 .. Visual Studio Code - 'free' in exchange for your info (via telemetry) and reduces the chance of a truly open competitor challenging the above tiers. This one must walk a line between being less useful than above tiers so there's value to buy them, while being more useful than other 'free' competition in the short term so they attract mindshare away from other OSS that might otherwise grow to challenge the higher Tiers