Sort of. The core is, and the installable binaries with telemetry and properietary extensions are not.
The open source, telemetry-free version of VSCode is called VSCodium: https://vscodium.com/
> Didn't cusor fork it and is building it features directly into the fork?
Yes, in their recent interview with Lex Fridman they argued that life as an extension is too limiting.
The main reason we criticise Microsoft for doing this and not them is just their size and market dominance.
Why jump through hoops to make competitors better able to hotwire their own AI into VSCode, or hotwire Copilot into their own IDE, when it's easier to iterate fast and remain unpredictable?
Because that is the competitive philosophy that allowed VS Code win in this space. It fits with that great quote from Bill Gates: "A platform is when the economic value of everybody that uses it, exceeds the value of the company that creates it."
By having VS Code give a priority to another MS/GitHub product that they aren't willing to give competitors, they're diminishing VS Code's value as a platform, and encouraging competitors to build their own IDEs rather than building on top of it.
Embrace, extend, and extinguish
`--->
The open source, telemetry-free version of VSCode is called VSCode. The VSCodium people simply build it for you and package it for you.
The sole thing you can actually download and run while calling it VS Code - a trademarked name - is neither open source nor telemetry-free.
If you choose to drive it, it's full price.
I don’t know if it’s legal or not, IANAL, but it feels definitely anti competitive.
No it’s not. Visual Studio is a proprietary product and the latest version is Visual Studio 2022.
Visual Studio Code is open source, and it is about as close to Visual Studio as Lightning is to Lightning Bug.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41891653
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41884187
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41809351
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41639205
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41384888
Now, I'm not a big fan of VS Code as of lately. I find the changes, that first broke Customize UI + MonkeyPatch extensions to make it look not completely shit on macOS, and now the change that broke APC too that replaced the first two, completely user-hostile and the PM response in GH issues to that very poor. But this specific lie about what is OSS and what isn't, and how it's used annoys me a lot. You are not helping with the problem.