Bug 793176 – app-editors/vscode: vscode is the name of OSS on github `microsoft/vscode` but this uses the closed source distribution

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED INVALID

[Description Ryan Tsien 2021-05-31 08:59:38 UTC]

I'm confused, according to the reference on the readme of https://github.com/microsoft/vscode :
  > This repository ("Code - OSS") is where we (Microsoft) develop the Visual Studio Code product together with the community. Not only do we work on code and issues here, we also publish our roadmap, monthly iteration plans, and our endgame plans. This source code is available to everyone under the standard MIT license.
  > Visual Studio Code is a distribution of the Code - OSS repository with Microsoft specific customizations released under a traditional Microsoft product license.

I realized that "vscode" is difference from "visual studio code", so does this pkg named right? The downloaded binary file of this ebuild is actually the closed source "Visual Studio Code" which released under a traditional Microsoft product license.

If I am wrong, just close this bug.

Reproducible: Always

[Comment 1 Sam James 2021-05-31 15:00:04 UTC]

(In reply to Ryan Qian from comment #0)
> 
> I realized that "vscode" is difference from "visual studio code", so does
> this pkg named right? The downloaded binary file of this ebuild is actually
> the closed source "Visual Studio Code" which released under a traditional
> Microsoft product license.

I think so, it's a really common abbreviation for the editor. Maybe we should rename it to vscode-bin and have vscode, but then they're not actually the *same* modulo source/binary, because of the secret sauce in the binary version. There's a PR open to add vscodium though.

> 
> If I am wrong, just close this bug.
>

I take your point but I'm inclined to close it, but will leave it for the maintainer.

[Comment 2 Adel KARA SLIMANE 2021-05-31 15:16:08 UTC]

Hello,

`vscode` is a common abreviation for microsoft's binary distribution of the editor, which is exactly what you install when you install `app-editors/vscode`. It is not the same as what you would get if you built it from source using their Github repository, thus the naming difference between `vscode-oss` and `vscode`. I therefore believe the naming is right in that matter.

Maybe this part confused you: bugs in the `app-editors/vscode` package have to be reported at Microsoft's Github repository that says in its README that it's "vscode-oss" because that's where we are asked to report bugs to. Microsoft's binary release doesn't add "features" on top of their open source code but only activate addionnal telemetry and maintains its own extension server for it, afaik.

Now about the `-bin` part, I took some time to think about whether to have it or not: since `vscode` automatically refers to microsoft's binary release, I favored the shorter version. `vscodium` for example is just a built from source "vscode" (with a different extension server) and they changed its name and logo.

For now I will not try to maintain a built-from source version, and if I or someone else would, I think the best name would be `vscode-oss` exactly as you pointed it out.