Re: Should we talk about "open source" hardware?

[Valentino Giudice]

I agree the name is strange. The name is "Code - OSS" (I believe "OSS"
stands for "Open Source Software").

It can be used on systems other than Windows, including GNU/Linux.

The program is a text editor which supports extensions, effectively
becoming an IDE. It is developed and released by Microsoft (with
contributions from the community: it's one of the most active GitHub
repositories).

> And how does it differ from (and relate to) "Visual Studio Code"?
According to Microsoft, what they do is:
- They take the code from Code - OSS
- They add branding
- They add telemetry (for which the source code is not given)
- They release the result with a proprietary license.

That result is Visual Studio Code.

An independent project, VS Codium, has been made to compile Code - OSS
from scratch. It also replaces the default extension store (which
contains proprietary extensions) with an independent one managed by
the Eclipse Foundation (note that they are extensions for Code - OSS
and Visual Studio Code, *not* for the Eclipse IDE, which has nothing
to do with this):
https://www.eclipse.org/community/eclipse_newsletter/2020/march/1.php

Code - OSS has multiple forks, including free ones, such as Eclipse
Theia, which also uses that extension store.
Note that Eclipse Theia is NOT what you may know as the Eclipse IDE
(the project for which the Eclipse Foundation is known).

So, to summarize:
- Microsoft develops the Code - OSS text editor on GitHub, on the
confusingly named "vscode" repository. It's only distributed as source
code.
- Microsoft distributes and promotes Visual Studio Code, which has the
same source code as Code - OSS, plus telemetry, and is proprietary and
distributed without source code.
- The Eclipse Foundation manages an independent extension store for
Code - OSS extensions, which has free extensions only.
- VS Codium is an independent project, not endorsed by Microsoft,
which compiles Code - OSS from source and replaces the default
extension store with the one managed by Eclipse.
- Eclipse Theia is a fork of Code - OSS. It also uses the alternative
store managed by Eclipse.

If someone wants the experience of Visual Studio Code but not
proprietary software, they can either compile Code - OSS themselves
(such as through VS Codium) or use a fork (such as Eclipse Theia).

These different flavors of the same text editor are cross compatible.
Projects written with one can be managed with the others and
extensions can work on all.

Visual Studio is an IDE by Microsoft, proprietary and without source
code. It has nothing in common with any of the above except for the
name and the logo, which is kind of similar.