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Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Microsoft knew they would never get significant market share unless they offered open source alternatives that let you circumvent

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Microsoft knew they would never get significant market share unless they offered open source alternatives that let you circumvent the telemetry in the early days of VScode. Embrace. The acquisition of github was part of this strategy. They made an ecosystem that sucked a lot of plugin developer talent into their ecosystem. Extend. Now the market share is firmly in their grasp and competitors have become weaker. Extinguish.

EasyMark 1y ago
This is it in a nutshell, with a lot of corps; IBM, Microsoft, etc. Be careful who you lie in bed with. Seemslike newer companies like Facebook and Google have a much much better track record. They may end a project but they don't suck you in and then say "nah, it's proprietary now"
- GuB-42 1y ago
  Android slowly became that. AOSP used to be the complete Android system, more or less. And when you bought a Nexus device from Google, that's what you got. But they progressively abandoned the stock apps to replace them by their proprietary counterparts, or ones tied to their online services. Then, they replaced their Nexus line of phones with the Pixel line. Pixels are full of proprietary technology, and their last move was to make Android development private.
  - ndiddy 1y ago
    Here's a pretty good Linus Tech Tips video where he installs stock AOSP on a Pixel phone and goes over how it's virtually unusable. Just like you say, while the Pixel UI may be Google's vision for how the Android platform should work, they've moved to keeping their UI development private just like every other Android vendor. Meanwhile, stock AOSP has basically been left to rot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hlRB2izres https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hlRB2izres
    - hollerith 1y ago
      However, GrapheneOS is thoroughly de-Googled and it regularly incorporates and benefits from new AOSP releases.
    - nolist_policy 1y ago
      It's still a better experience than a pinephone.
  - someNameIG 1y ago
    AOSP is still fully open source and allows you to build a complete Android system on it though. Theirs open source GrapheneOS, LineageOS, /e/OS, and the closed source onset on Chinese domestic phones that have their own proprietary versions on play services.
- rthomas6 1y ago
  Eh. Google may be better than Microsoft in this regard, but this is basically what they're doing with Android. AOSP is now lacking a lot of core functionality that comes with Google Pixel phones, such as RCS messaging, emoji reactions to text messages, camera features and photo editing, voicemail transcription, crash detection. Even the keyboard is worse in AOSP.
- diegof79 1y ago
  The track record of Facebook and Google may be better because their open-source strategy is to never open things that are core to their business. Projects like React will not give you a competitive advantage to build a Facebook competitor. What a project like React gives to Facebook is marketing and a carrot to bring promising talent to the company. The issue with VS Code is that it opened the door to many other editors, which, in a sense, drive people away from the Microsoft ecosystem. The combination of VSCode, GitHub, and TypeScript is ideal for MS: they win by attracting companies to GitHub services (which also offer code spaces based on VSCode); they also win by attracting users to Copilot, which helps them improve their tools. Creating an editor like VS Code is expensive; they are not paying the core developers because they prefer to give away money. They do it because it's part of their business strategy. You don't pay for VS Code; companies that subscribe to GitHub services do. A VS Code fork circumvents that strategy.
formerly_proven 1y ago
Microsoft couldn't have telegraphed their intentions more clearly if they tried, yet tons and tons of people and organizations fell for it (again!). VS Code source is under MIT, but the built product is under an EULA - and all Microsoft extensions are under an EULA that requires the use of the EULA build. As has been already posted multiple times here... https://ghuntley.com/fracture/ https://ghuntley.com/fracture/
- rpdillon 1y ago
  Yeah, the main reason I never switched from emacs to VSCode is because I was worried about Microsoft's stewardship of it, particularly the fact that the extension ecosystem, which is so critical to a good editor, was burdened. There have been a lot of discussions about VSCodium's use of the manifest files from the original VS Code manifest without permission, and while that wasn't enforced, it was never really resolved. Sad to see it go in such a predictable direction.

EasyMark 1y ago

This is it in a nutshell, with a lot of corps; IBM, Microsoft, etc. Be careful who you lie in bed with. Seemslike newer companies like Facebook and Google have a much much better track record. They may end a project but they don't suck you in and then say "nah, it's proprietary now"

GuB-42 1y ago
Android slowly became that. AOSP used to be the complete Android system, more or less. And when you bought a Nexus device from Google, that's what you got. But they progressively abandoned the stock apps to replace them by their proprietary counterparts, or ones tied to their online services. Then, they replaced their Nexus line of phones with the Pixel line. Pixels are full of proprietary technology, and their last move was to make Android development private.
- ndiddy 1y ago
  Here's a pretty good Linus Tech Tips video where he installs stock AOSP on a Pixel phone and goes over how it's virtually unusable. Just like you say, while the Pixel UI may be Google's vision for how the Android platform should work, they've moved to keeping their UI development private just like every other Android vendor. Meanwhile, stock AOSP has basically been left to rot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hlRB2izres https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hlRB2izres
  - hollerith 1y ago
    However, GrapheneOS is thoroughly de-Googled and it regularly incorporates and benefits from new AOSP releases.
  - nolist_policy 1y ago
    It's still a better experience than a pinephone.
- someNameIG 1y ago
  AOSP is still fully open source and allows you to build a complete Android system on it though. Theirs open source GrapheneOS, LineageOS, /e/OS, and the closed source onset on Chinese domestic phones that have their own proprietary versions on play services.
rthomas6 1y ago
Eh. Google may be better than Microsoft in this regard, but this is basically what they're doing with Android. AOSP is now lacking a lot of core functionality that comes with Google Pixel phones, such as RCS messaging, emoji reactions to text messages, camera features and photo editing, voicemail transcription, crash detection. Even the keyboard is worse in AOSP.
diegof79 1y ago
The track record of Facebook and Google may be better because their open-source strategy is to never open things that are core to their business. Projects like React will not give you a competitive advantage to build a Facebook competitor. What a project like React gives to Facebook is marketing and a carrot to bring promising talent to the company. The issue with VS Code is that it opened the door to many other editors, which, in a sense, drive people away from the Microsoft ecosystem. The combination of VSCode, GitHub, and TypeScript is ideal for MS: they win by attracting companies to GitHub services (which also offer code spaces based on VSCode); they also win by attracting users to Copilot, which helps them improve their tools. Creating an editor like VS Code is expensive; they are not paying the core developers because they prefer to give away money. They do it because it's part of their business strategy. You don't pay for VS Code; companies that subscribe to GitHub services do. A VS Code fork circumvents that strategy.

formerly_proven 1y ago

Microsoft couldn't have telegraphed their intentions more clearly if they tried, yet tons and tons of people and organizations fell for it (again!). VS Code source is under MIT, but the built product is under an EULA - and all Microsoft extensions are under an EULA that requires the use of the EULA build. As has been already posted multiple times here... https://ghuntley.com/fracture/ https://ghuntley.com/fracture/

rpdillon 1y ago
Yeah, the main reason I never switched from emacs to VSCode is because I was worried about Microsoft's stewardship of it, particularly the fact that the extension ecosystem, which is so critical to a good editor, was burdened. There have been a lot of discussions about VSCodium's use of the manifest files from the original VS Code manifest without permission, and while that wasn't enforced, it was never really resolved. Sad to see it go in such a predictable direction.