He is getting a lot of hate there for not open-sourcing it. I noticed a very hostile environment for one-person projects that don't do everything open-source, while businesses aren't held to the same standard, and they are the ones that benefit the most. That's sad.
It's not unfair. I have a different standard for proprietary payware and proprietary freeware. With the former, you know where you stand, but in my experience, the reasons for not releasing freeware under a FOSS licence are normally user-hostile, like baiting in users with a free product and charging money once they're hooked. I've been bitten too many times, so I don't tend to install proprietary freeware anymore.
Hyperbole kills the meaning of words, to the point that people stop taking them seriously. You're doing a disservice to "malware" here. Yes, VSCode wants to know everything you do in that app, but it's not like it will keylog everything you do and steal your credit card.
That's no hyperbole. Do you know what a malware is? If you do, you know that a text editor that collects telemetry is a type of malware, period. There is no meaning discussing if they are logging every thing but if they can. If they can, it is a malware. They can.