TL;DR (meta phrased)

Microsoft is forking VSCode open source community by split licensing for source code and and official build of VSCode. If you build by yourself you can’t connect to VSCode is marketplace.

This allows them to fully control VSCode telemetry and reporting along with use on platforms such as Gitpod. It’s similar to how Apple controls apps on iPhone and in turn control how much you need to pay them if you earn money on it.

In long run everything going on cloud and SaaS/ PaaS platform holding the keys to developer tooling gate such as VSCode, Microsoft has unfair advantage over other competitors and still keep benefits of OSS

It's always the same: Microsoft seems to have turned and got away from its evil image, then they turn their all they have done good into more evil.

Some of us were suspicious of the “new Microsoft”, mostly because with the exception of a few projects (VSCode among them, and not anymore), nothing really changed. Turns out, we weren’t wrong.

There is a short summary at the end.

Damn, that is a seriously long article lol