[correct_horse]

The closed-source nature of VSCode is a little more practically important than you make it out to be. It prevents Linux distros from including VSCode in their package managers (except non-free categories, usually disabled by default). And makes it impossible to patch VSCode, only "Code - OSS". Also, for normal users, the brand/icon is everything. If they go to their computer and "the chrome icon is blue", they will want the old icon back, if only because it's the one they know and trust.

You are distorting facts by calling VSCode open source. This [1] is the license for VSCode. It lets you "use any number of copies of the software to develop and test your applications, including deployment within your internal corporate network". The license implicitly (by omission) does not let you distribute binaries to your friends and colleges outside of your "corporate network". This is the defining characteristic of freeware. I am not a lawyer, that was not legal advice.

Your argument is akin to calling google chrome open-source. Yes, it is based on the open source chromium, but Chrome is decidedly not open-source.

On a more practical note, the fact that Microsoft does not distribute an open source build of VSCode is pretty annoying.

[1] - https://code.visualstudio.com/License/

[oaiey]

Agree to the annoying practical situations for the distributions. Unfortunately, a structural Linux problem. Is not that the old Firefox problem. They need to protect brand and reputation and cannot trust downstream packages.

Disagree with chrome comparison. Chrome adds tons of feature packages which are blobs or heavily proprietary stuff. VS Code does nothing of that. They add config settings and icons.

In regards of the open source built: Microsoft does that with .NET and it seems a pain. I mean, what is an open source build? A package different for 20 distributions with each 5 versions. Or a build script (which I hope they have :))

[correct_horse]

I'm not familiar with the history or the closed-source feature set of chrome. This [1] search result shows rather minor features compared to a browser - codecs, flash player, auto-update (I suppose this is a big deal on non-linux). VSCode, on the other hand has a proprietary Visual Studio Marketplace extension, (extra?) telemetry and an updater. [2] (I found a better link)

I actually only want an open source build for macOS and Windows - on Linux I almost exclusively use what is in the package manager. I just wish "Code - OSS" had a more recognizable name (and icon), like "VS Code OSS edition" (with a different color of the same logo) Code OSS is just impossible to search.

[1] https://www.howtogeek.com/202825/what%E2%80%99s-the-differen... [2] https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/wiki/Differences-between...

[oaiey]

Ok, I stand corrected. The comparison with Chrome is roughly fair. My memory was mislead by this article https://www.ghacks.net/2019/04/09/microsoft-edge-google-feat... . And I still cannot belief this is all open source :)