Vscode-remote-release: Remote Containers and VSCodium

[rawtaz]

In https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/967 @kieferrm writes:

• Reminder: You may only use this software with Visual Studio family products,
• as described in the license (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2077057)

Right. But since when isn't VSCodium a "Visual Studio family product"? It's quite clear that it is, given that it's built off the VS Code source code. The differences are minimal and not relevant in this context. It's clearly a "Visual Studio family product".

So, can you please remove the restriction in this extension such that VSCodium can use it fully? There's no point in not letting users of VSCodium use it the same way that they would if they were running VS Code.

Again, the differences between these two builds of the VS Code source code are minimal and of a completely different nature than what is relevant to this extension - the two builds would use and communicate with the extension in the very same way, hence the differences in the builds aren't practically relevant to this extension at all.

[brianclinkenbeard]

Even whether or not VSCodium would be a “Visual Studio family product” I think the licensing of this product to force users to use the proprietary version of vscode really goes against the spirit of making vscode OSS to begin with. This is similar to how Visual Studio Code is advertised on the website as open source when the builds provided are actually proprietary. It seems that Microsoft wants the to have the advantages both of the software being open source (better PR and image) and proprietary (i.e. not putting the user interest first).

VSCode is one of the best things MS has done in a while, but it seems that if they want to choose open source, they should actually embrace it instead of adding caveats to lock the user in.

[bhack]

Honestly It doesn't make so much sense to use Vscodium and then select proprietary extensions, It Is counterintuitive IMHO.
When this extension was realased there was still a ray of light about having opensoudce code at some point in the timeline and separate MS commercial cloud services.
See https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/179#issuecomment-489720292.
But I don't know the current status.

[rawtaz]

@bhack Consider the following combinations of what you run:

• VSCode and the proprietary extension: One component you know does telemetry and similar, and one component that might do it.

• VSCodium and the proprietary extension: One component you can verify does not do telemetry and similar, and one component that might do it.

At this point you have set yourself up for a much lesser risk of being tracked, because you have eliminated known telemetry and are now only exposing yourself to potential telemetry.

I believe that the parts of the extension that runs under VSCode does not do telemetry, because I haven't seen any suspicious outgoing calls from it. It could still do some telemetry inside the containers though, I haven't checked that.

Regardless; Personally I need this extension in order to have a working development environment, but the this doesn't mean I want to support telemetry in VSCode, so there's reasons beside the technical ones to run VSCodium instead of VSCode.

[bhack]

I understand but while I think Vscodium is an interesting project I think that It has any sense to make an opensoruce political battle or philosophical strategy on let be able to combins Vscodium with propietary extensions.
IMHO a a more profitable effort would be to try to push Microsoft to sperate extensions source code from subcomponents related to its own commercial cloud services.
I see some margin in the Microsoft original declarations that I've mentioned in https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/179#issuecomment-489720292

[bhack]

If you see It Is still in the official FAQ https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/faq#_why-arent-the-remote-development-extensions-or-their-components-open-source