[hamandcheese]

I think the downvotes are because Microsoft has been providing some amazing tools completely free of charge. If that helps them sell more Azure... great! Everyone wins, except GitLab and AWS.

Calling it spyware is hyperbolic.

Keep it up Microsoft.

[cutler]

Some of us have longer memories of Microsoft's game-plan - embrace and extend. With so man now willing to grant Microsoft open source cred don't forget that it wasn't so long ago that Microsoft was running a Linux patent racket. If we allow The Beast to monopolise open source development tools we have only ourselves to blame.

[eeZah7Ux]

Microsoft has been adopting standards to then extend them and lock-in users for two decades.

> Microsoft has been providing some amazing tools completely free of charge

Yes, and they are the opposite of a no-profit.

This are just the first steps: "embrace" and "extend".

[sneak]

Not at all. There are no objective criteria to define spyware that do not also apply to Windows or VS Code (and probably the GitHub mobile app, but I have not yet confirmed that).