This is what worries me. What if we all start using these tools and then new management comes in (or if it was the plan all along) and poisons the well.

I seriously can't get too excited about MSFT technologies because

- they have an history of discarding products on a whim,

- playing the strategic game and stifling smaller competitors,

- having a new CEO doesn't mean it's a new company. The people are still there, there are still fragmentation and silos, and the attitude.

Keep in mind that this time they are not just giving away stuff "free as in beer" they are also giving it away not under AGPL, not under GPL, not under LGPL but under a MIT License which is one of the most permissive licenses out there.

Contrast this to Oracle/Java. Or about any other huge corporation.

Using a permissive license is the strategy that makes the most sense when your primary goal is proliferation over developer community. Thus, it's nothing surprising.

I thought Visual Studio Code was "free as in beer". Are you saying it's not proprietary?