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VSCode is not open source, VSCodium is.

VSCode includes extra twitter/microsoft spyware (or "telemetry" for those who prefer that euphemism).

The "VSCode" binary you download includes unknown proprietary extras.

Fun fact : VSCode official home page used to have the motto "Open Source", now it is "Built on Open Source" (check on the wayback machine if you don't believe me)

I guess the MS legal team was afraid of keeping lying about the openness of VScode yet they knew Open Source is a good buzzword to attract devs so they played with words.

This is the typical big corporate approach :

Step 1) Say you develop an Open Platform so that you get many users and free contributions.

Step 2) Once you own the market and people are too addicted to switch, bit by bit make it proprietary, add more spyware.

This is the story of Android , VSCode, ONNXRuntime, and many others.


Telemetry isn't a euphemism for spyware.



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