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I don't usually do this "argument by argument rebuttal" but since your post is extremely misleading I can't resist:

> pretty much an inferior copy of an existing thing (Atom)

How? For starters, it's a lot faster which appears to be a major reason why people switch

> but not really built as a nice platform to be meaningfully extended

Well that's up for debate now isn't it? Its plugin ecosystem disagrees with a perceived lack of extensibility.

> used cynically as a wedge to pull developers into your orbit

How does VSC do that? I use it and I've never seen it advertise other Microsoft products or services to me.

> and controlled by a single company

Fork it.

1. Kind of fair, it's better in some ways and worse in others. I would emphasise extensibility (this is after all an emacs thread) so I'd call it worse. You don't seem to dispute that it's a copy (in terms of engine/approach) 2. Same as 1, having read the issues and some of the source I stand by the statement. 3. Ask yourself why else Microsoft would build something 4. Fork it is naive to the point of being dishonest. You cannot outfork something with 10 professional developers, unless you're Stallman doing it full time.

You only disputed some of my points, "most people will download it with spyware", "it will damage existing more truly extensible efforts" seems to be a pretty key ones you haven't disputed. If only those two were true it would be enough for me to dislike it.

Design choices are not always bad. And Open Source != not being opinionated.

Regarding the spyware thing, agreed, but at the end of the day, the makers choose how they distribute the thing. It's just like Chrome and many other products.

I, for one, am thankful that they're making available a high quality tool for free.

> It's just like Chrome and many other products.

Exactly. That's another program whose "open source" status frustrates and saddens me.

I guess you should be looking for Free Software. After all, there was a big kerfuffle about it in the early 2000's.

Not an user of VSCode, but what you wrote applies to a lot of corporate-backed open source products. Try to replace VSCode with Chrome in your post, it will probably even more apt.