Your Obsidian vault is a folder of Markdown files that use [[links like this]]. You can load your Obsidian vault folder in the open-source version of VSCode with either the "Foam"[1] extensions or Markdown Memo[2] VSCode extension. [[This style of link]] works great with either. I think I also saw a new feature (or plugin?) for VimWiki that allows [[links]] to work even when the target is in a different subfolder, but I haven't tried it myself so don't quote me on that. There are also other programs that use this style of linking.

You can alternatively set up Obsidian to use [regular markdown links](regular.md) , it's just not the default setting.

[1]: https://foambubble.github.io/

[2]: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=svsool.m...

What's the definition of properly though? It opens and works fine.

If you're saying "Features that only exist within Obsidian won't exist in other apps!" then.. yea, that's true. However features that _do_ exist in other apps, like the loosely spec'd `[[link]]` will work in many apps. Same with latex, github extensions, etc.