vscodium VS vscode-cpptools

Visual Studio Code is distributed under the MIT license, a permissive license that allows you to do anything with the source code. This license is recognised by the OSI as an Open Source license. And quite predictably, a few forks of VSCode exists. VSCodium seems to be the most popular.

Thanks, haven't tried it yet, but just found the relevant configuration settings described in the docs [0] and more detail on Stack Overflow [1].

[0] https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/blob/master/prepare_vsc...

[1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44057402/using-extension...

A 1st party ad is still an ad, though in isolation I do I agree that it's quite mild all considered. With context however (this being Microsoft's doing, and all the AI/Adware/telemetry/darkpatterns they're cramming into everything), I share OP's derision for this development in a tool that has become a centerpiece for many developers workflows, dev environments, and ancillary (plugins) ecosystems.

Thankfully, for now at least, VSCode is MIT Licensed [0], source available [1], and if built from source it does not include CoPilot, Telemetry or MS' other crapware or branding. VS Codium [2] compiles this source for you without the cruft and makes those binaries/installers available [3] if like.

For those that like CoPilot, VSCodium even has a guide on how to add it to VSCodium/Source Built VSCode [4]

0: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/blob/main/LICENSE.txt

1: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode

2: https://vscodium.com/#why

3: https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/releases

4: https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/discussions/1487

Notably absent are all of the remote debugging extensions and Copilot. This would be a deal-breaker for many.

[0] https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/blob/master/docs/index....

Thanks, good spot.

So Mozilla, an organisation that commends itself for working to put control of the internet back in the hands of the people using it, [0] is creating a situation where the FOSS community needs to maintain its own 'cleansed' builds, akin to VS Code/VS Codium [1] and, to a lesser extent, Chrome/Chromium. [2] (The Chromium case is somewhat different; Google maintains both the FOSS Chromium builds and the non-Free Chrome builds).

4 years ago I commented that It's just non-stop with Mozilla, isn't it? They have the curious pairing of technical excellence, and a long history of awful non-technical decision-making. Little seems to have changed. [3]

[0] https://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/about/

[1] https://vscodium.com/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_(web_browser)

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26873740

I've been running vscodium for a couple of years now, and they rip out the MS specific stuff so no ChatGPT and so forth. I haven't noticed any slowdowns.

Maybe give it a try? https://vscodium.com/

Continue [0] is open source and supports local models. I still haven't found time to try it out yet. If you host it in VSCodium [1], you would have pretty much what you asked for.

[0] https://www.continue.dev/

[1] https://vscodium.com/

intelliSenseMode needs to be set appropriately for your platform. This link has a list of platforms where you can set it.

Its close in spirit to DRM. They want to ensure that if you are using their projects, it must be under their terms.

Many of their VS Code extensions[0] have license terms which /prohibit/ them from being used in editors that are not Microsoft's VS Code editor, and Microsoft can issue cease-and-desist for violation of this or use of their extension marketplace in alternative editors.

Microsoft has a pattern they follow where they publish repositories on GitHub to proclaim they are open source, while actually distributing proprietary binary blobs in them that are fundamental core parts of functionality to the codebase[2][3][4]

[0] https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/issues/6388#iss...

[1] https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/issues/5784

[2] https://github.com/microsoft/win32metadata/issues/766

[3] https://devlog.hexops.com/2024/building-the-directx-shader-c...

[4] https://github.com/microsoft/Azure-Kinect-Sensor-SDK/issues/...

The C/C++ extension is open source with MIT license but the shipped extension binary contains MS proprietary binaries that is not as open [1]. I am not sure what will be the difference between using MS official build and compiling the source (there will be some for sure).

[1] https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/blob/main/LICEN...

Now if only MS would fix VSCode[0] :'(. Come on, the feature if more than half a decade old and this point.

0: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/issues/6302

🔗 Link to GitHub Issue: Add Similar Function - https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/issues/11477

According to this: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/issues/3423 it seems to be at least somewhat possible to reuse natvis files from Visual Studio, but I have not tested that. Never really had the need to look at any non-vector container in the debugger.

Thank you for the feedback! Perf is always an ongoing issue for us but I can say that we’ve recently allocated one of our senior engineers to take on more perf related issues. Something that really helps us out is if you could file reproducible steps that lead to your performance issue. This allows us to address the issues more readily. Please file your issues here: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/issues

Yes, see this github issue for an example: Add Ada to supported languages for debugging · Issue #10475 · microsoft/vscode-cpptools (github.com)