[number6]

while vs is technically open source it's not free software. not only in the gnu sense but also the binaries are licensed different as the source code. You have to compile vs yourself to benefit from the licensing of the source code

[oaiey]

The whole purpose of "open source" and "free software" is to allow modifications and ownership by the user. Both requires to compile on your own. So I would not call it a burden (as opposed to "benefit") but a consequence of being open source.

So we should consider the binaries as a branded favor of Microsoft for the lazy rest of us ;)