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Depends on the distro. For the main Debian repos, it's true. Others like Arch are more lenient, e.g. Arch packages the Steam client.

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It's worth noting that VS Code is only available in the AUR:

[visual-studio-code-bin](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/visual-studio-code-bin/): Original binary from Microsoft

[code](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/code/): Build from latest release source code

[code-git](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/code-git/): Build from latest Git commit

The versions that build from source (`code` and `code-git`, AFAIK have telemetry disabled).

Are you sure arch distributes them? Like oracle jre, proprietary packages are downloaded during installation, i think debian non-free works similarly.

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