Comment by infamia | Hacker News Reader

Comment by infamia | Hacker News Reader

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> Their existing and continued contributions to vscode are significant, so I think they can be allowed to keep some cards up their sleeves like the plugin marketplace or their Python extension.

It would have been fine if MS had started with their Python extension being proprietary, that would have been up front and transparent. Instead, they lured folks in (no small part due to open source), and once it became popular, they started turning the screws and making things proprietary and locking it down.

> I'm just flabbergasted at this idea that somehow we're entitled to everything vscode-adjacent "just because"

You're not arguing in good faith at this point. I don't think it is unreasonable to ask someone to make their intentions known up front do you? Instead MS waited until vscode became popular (partly because everything was open source) and then altering the deal Vader style closing off parts of vscode and extensions that were open. That doesn't feel particularly transparent.

> or that Microsoft is obligated to subsidize other billion-dollar business by giving them free features for their vscode forks.

I have no idea what you're talking about here. Vscodium is an entirely free and open source fork, no one makes any money from it afaik.

> Where's the bait? Where's the switch? If the best you have is that they released a closed source plugin I'm going to bucket this as another borrowed opinion.

They released the Python stack as fully open source. Then released the proprietary one, deprecating the open source one. Then made double certain that vscodium or any of the other forks could not use it at all, even if the use manually downloaded the extension. How is that not a bait and switch?

> It would have been fine if MS had started with their Python extension being proprietary

Except that never happened. Pyright was released first and was and continues to be open source. Pylance was built on Pyright but has never been open source. No promises or commitments were made otherwise. Deprecating the open source Python Language Server in favor of Pylance is also a perfectly reasonable and valid decision - the community was more than welcome to continue maintaining it, but most people I know continue to rely on Pylance.

> Instead, they lured folks in

Saying this doesn't make it true.

> Instead, they lured folks in (no small part due to open source), and once it became popular, they started turning the screws and making things proprietary and locking it down.

Microsoft has not once backtracked on anything vscode-related that's been open sourced. Trying to villianize them for not making everything open source is an argument with no legs.

> I don't think it is unreasonable to ask someone to make their intentions known up front do you?

They have. Point me to a single actual example of Microsoft operating in bad faith, that isn't them deciding to keep some parts of the ecosystem proprietary while 99% remains FOSS.

> Vscodium is an entirely free and open source fork

Microsoft and the vscode team is not making long-term decisions with vscodium in mind. But they are probably worried about Windsurf and Cursor, the latter of which (a billion-dollar company) was caught violating MS's TOS around the plugin ecosystem.

Microsoft has spent over a decade investing in, curating, and improving the vscode first-party plugin ecosystem and being a rather good steward. I think they're perfectly reasonable in keeping it to themselves. Creators are free to upload their plugins to any alternative marketplace. I don't see any arguments being made that can diminish the open source contribution they've made with code - oss just because parts of the branded vscode are proprietary.

> They released the Python stack as fully open source.

Again, no they didn't. Pyright open source. Pylance always closed source. PLS deprecated. But you're entitled to what you borrowed.

> Pyright was released first and was and continues to be open source. Pylance was built on Pyright but has never been open source.

No, the first Python extension that shipped with vscode 1.0 in 2016 was called the "Microsoft Python Language Server" and was based on the Jedi LSP. Below is the deprecation announcement of the Jedi language server in the Pylance launch post below.

> In the short-term, you will still be able to use the Microsoft Python Language Server as your choice of language server when writing Python in Visual Studio Code. > Our long-term plan is to transition our Microsoft Python Language Server users over to Pylance and eventually deprecate and remove the old language server as a supported option. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/python/announcing-pylance-fas...

> But they are probably worried about Windsurf and Cursor, the latter of which (a billion-dollar company) was caught violating MS's TOS around the plugin ecosystem.

If that were so, I would certainly understand. However, MS started closing vscode and the extensions years before Windsurf and Cursor (initial release in 2023). This was their business model all along get adoption in partly by leveraging the open source community, and then close things off slowly once they have a choke hold (similar to Android/AOSP). I could scarcely agree more that Windserf and Cursor are supremely sketchy and generally scummy companies.

Consider MS launch announcement that focuses on open source, extensibility, open community, and a promise to be transparent with their intentions (i.e., vision) and roadmap...

> From the beginning, we’ve striven to be as open as possible in our roadmap and vision for VS Code, and in November, we took that a step further by open-sourcing VS Code and adding the ability for anyone to make it better through submitting issues and feedback, making pull requests, or creating extensions.

https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2016/04/14/vscode-1.0/#_...

Except they weren't open and did a u-turn on the community a few years later. MS started closing sources and locked things down a few years later despite touting the benefits of being open and open source in the announcement above. Now they have architected the Python extension so it only runs on vscode, and will not run at all on any fork, which is pretty shady after promising transparency and openness.

You forgot to quote this important part:

> The new, free language server

Pylance isn't the same extension as what was originally shipped, it's an entirely different product. Your link backs up my argument, not yours. Releasing an open source project doesn't not obligate them to continue supporting that project indefinitely, and the decision to migrate to a closed-source plugin is a perfectly valid and reasonable decision. Disagreeing with it doesn't mean they've somehow magically violated some implicit obligation you think they owe "the community".

> MS started closing vscode and the extensions years

They never "started". The plugin marketplace and vscode - the proprietary version of "Code - OSS" - has always been proprietary and closed. At no point did they give you something and take it away. Deciding to release a closed-source replacement for an open-source tool is not the same thing, and it's bad faith to argue otherwise to fit your fundamentally flawed argument.

> This was their business model all along get adoption in partly by leveraging the open source community

>Consider MS launch announcement that focuses on open source, extensibility, open community

You're relying on hand-wavy assertions without any evidence to back it up.

> Except they weren't open and did a u-turn on the community a few years later.

Where's the u-turn? I don't see anything in this post that's not true in 2025. Microsoft offers a curated plugin marketplace that's proprietary to vscode, and they provide distribution and hosting for free without requiring anything from creators and users. Pylance continues to be free but closed, Code - OSS continues to be FOSS, vscode continues to be a proprietary version of Code - OSS, plugin authors continue to upload products free-of-charge, and users continue to benefit from that community that Microsoft has fostered.

They've firmly established what their role is in this relationship. There's never been ambiguity between what's vscode closed-source and what's code - oss, unless you've not put in the effort to find out.

Point to an actual, concrete example of where they've acted in bad faith, did a "u-turn", or reneged on a public statement rather than hand-wavy generalizations. It's on you if you've relied on second-hand HN comments and news headlines to build your opinion, and relying on misunderstanding of context isn't a convincing argument.

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