Google released Android open source, but then made unlocking bootloaders and flashing devices as difficult as possible for laymen. So they get to point at AOSP and say "open source" but in practice the vast majority of users end up running proprietary builds with big G's telemetry baked in
> in practice the vast majority of users end up running proprietary builds with big G's telemetry baked in
The vast majority of users are always going to do this, regardless of how easy it is to install a custom OS.
I'd rather work a week on VSCode for free than spending a day looking at Jetbrains' Java font rendering or waiting for Visual Studio to start.
Open sourced a product and released a different product that has built-in tracking, is a walled garden for extensions and who knows what else.
An elaborate fraud.
This isn't fraud, this is literally MS going "here's the MIT licensed version, and here's our own variant of that, based on obeying that license." And then they go one step further and say "We're not going to tell you that only our product exists, we are explicitly telling you where to get the MIT licensed source code, which isn't even an MIT license requirement".
This is exactly what good open source practices look like.
> A Cuck License is a permissive software license that that does not enforce the freedom of derivative works. This means that anyone can take software licensed under a Cuck License and turn it into proprietary software, effectively cucking the original author.
> Examples of Cuck Licenses are the MIT license and BSD license.
> Cuck License consequences:
> There have been instances where developers's usage of Cuck Licenses has backfired. One notable example is Andrew Tanenbaum' MINIX, which got taken by Intel and turned into spyware called the Intel Management Engine. Tanenbaum went on to say:
> "Many people (including me) don't like the idea of an all-powerful management engine in there at all (since it is a possible security hole and a dangerous idea in the first place), but that is Intel's business decision and a separate issue from the code it runs. A company as big as Intel could obviously write its own OS if it had to."
> However, Tanenbaum maintains that he made the correct choice licensing MINIX under the 3-clause BSD License.
Even giving your code to the public domain is better than an MIT or BSD license; corporations will still be able to make it proprietary but at least it clears the air around the 'interesting question' of mixing MIT/BSD code into a copyleft project and distributing the whole lot under a copyleft license.
Maybe in the US, but much of the world doesn't recognise waving away all author rights voluntarily. The closest thing to worldwide public domain is probably the Creative Commons Zero licence.
I'm serious, how many German individuals do you think would refuse to install sqlite on their personal computer because they lack a technically valid license for it? A few such weirdos doubtlessly exist but you can safely ignore them.
SQLite has a good track record but I can imagine another strongly religious developer taking advantage of authorship rights to damage some small EU-based social organization they strongly disagreed with; just an example.
As for the weirdos, as I said SQLite has a good track record, but I'd think twice over a much smaller dependency. However, I've seen enough disregard for FOSS licenses in business to know the weirdos are few. I guess you either care about license minutae or you don't.
For those who find the closed capabilities and extensions distasteful there is opportunity to make their own.
The producer gives you two options to aquire that chocolate.
First option is a pile of ingredients, a plain plastic wrapper and a recipe. You are obviously required to make the chocolate yourself, but what you get is the original chocolate as advocated by the company.
Second option is a finished product that has a pretty decorated package and tastes a bit different than original chocolate. You can't quite put your finger on why, but at least you don't have to make it yourself!
Maybe "fraud" is a bit too strong word. We could go with "consumer deceit" instead.
It would be a fraud if the label on the product you buy omitted some ingredients, but it's not the case here: Microsoft doesn't claim its binaries are the result of a vanilla make on their source!
Basically: Microsoft is betting that people care more about free as in beer than exercising software freedom. So far, they seem to be correct.
What is the reason that Codium can't access the extensions? That's like Edge wouldn't be allowed to load extensions from the Chrome store.
What you're looking for is the "anti-features" distinctions, like the F-Droid store does it. E.g. "This app depends on other non-free apps." or "Promotes or depends entirely on a non-free network service."
Not quite. Try running Pylance on a build of your own.
The value of a lot of software comes from interoperability, not from the code itself.
For instance, try running AOSP and 100% open source system libraries on your android phone for a month. You will find that you cannot perform basic financial transactions, like paying for parking, or hailing an uber/lyft, fast-charge your car, attend concerts without paying an extra fee, etc, etc.
I don’t even want my phone to support any of the above crap, but I don’t get to dictate how the US economy is structured, so I have no choice but to need all that stuff to work.
What used to be useful extras are now considered essentials (see how many on this thread say they need the SSH, Docker or WSL extensions and can't use VSCodium).
Plus they're now moving Python, .NET and other specific extensions towards closed source. Yeah, you can use the open source versions, but they don't have mindshare any more so source code written with one might not navigate/display as well with the other.
Also, new features only land when MS has a closed source idea that can use it, and are locked to MS extensions only. Innovation for me, not for thee. (Copilot/Continue on Codespaces/Live Share/VS Code Web/...)
They are also adding Python support to Excel, which means that the layman now has a intuitive way to use a Python function to plot graphs inside their favorite workbook.
In other words, now you no longer need those extra machine learning Python devs, when Bob the accountant can plot fancy graphs for you.
Talk about extending an open source project just to incorporate it into the Borg that is closed-source Excel.
Wow, that's a bold claim. Unless vscode and other products are improperly using GPL-licensed or not following license requirements otherwise -- which I am not aware of -- Microsoft is doing nothing wrong here, just like countless other commercial companies that release proprietary software based on open source projects.
I think they do it mostly to make it easier to build an ecosystem of developers. Plenty of companies do this (Adobe is another one). They release some basic part or engine of their product so developers can work with it without compromising their business.
The name is probably a world play similar to Chrome -> Chromium. A mini rant, if I may:
Microsoft's (and Google's, lol) practice of "open-sourcing" their products, but releasing a product which has "an added closed-source functionality" is dishonest at best and worthy of a giant lawsuit at worst.