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Comment by joshstrange | Hacker News Reader

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joshstrange

I'm sure some (many?) will disagree with me but:

VSCode is Android. Or rather, VSCode's source is AOSP and the marketplace, plugins, etc are Google Play Services.

I say that with maximum derision.

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> VSCode is Android

Yes, an open source project that creates immense value, but fails to fulfill some purist fantasy.

Like have a working keyboard?

My android phone doesn't have a working keyboard?

You use stock Android Open Source keyboard, not closed-sourced Gboard? Can you type in Chinese?

China doesn't uses Google services. Am sure they can type in Chinese.

Those Android phones are loaded with their manufacturer's Chinese IME, not a completely open-source one.

CJK languages need language-specific AI conversion engines for any kind of typing. Which OSS versions exist for Japanese, I don't know for Chineses(CN/HK/TW - IIUC they're slightly divergent beyond fonts).

Components that are not used, that almost always get replaced by vendors do not get much love. That the base AOSP should be optimized to use out of the box is a purist fantasy. In reality AOSP is made with the understanding that vendors are going to customize it. A lot of Android is designed to be modular, you can easily install a different keyboard app.

> Yes, an open source project that creates immense value, but fails to fulfill some purist fantasy.

Yes, a purist fantasy of an open source project that functions without closed source proprietary blobs.

Oh, the horror! Won't somebody think of the children!?

I would immediately jump ship if I could buy a phone that supports a truly free OS. Instead, I'm stuck with an option between a reasonably-secure, but completely locked-down phone (both hardware and software) with an exorbitant life-long cost and semi-locked-down phones with a pseudo-FOSS OS, whose main business is to my leak personal data for a dozen companies. Honestly, the only reason why Android (and iOS) reign unchallenged is because of their iron grip over the hardware ecosystem.

> I would immediately jump ship if I could buy a phone that supports a truly free OS.

Is your definition of “Phone” equivalent to “must run apps (non-emulated) for iPhone and/or Android”? Otherwise, I mean, these things do exist: <https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/>

My definition of a phone platform is that a reasonable app ecosystem must exist. Or at least the ability to easily develop the ones I need - I don't mind developing for my needs. If a more secure phone without a substantial app ecosystem is enough, then a feature phone would be fine. Librem phone unfortunately doesn't meet that requirement.

The difficulty is that even many essential service APIs are not open to alternative implementations.

I've yet to see any immense success based on the open source part of android.

Its value and main goal is to suffocate any initiative on mobile space, call it immense if you will, but I concede it certainly works.

We can't possibly be Anti-competitive! We give it away for free! "

an open source project that creates immense value, but fails to be open source

you are correct. vscode (mit) is utterly evil - see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43786380

as someone who has reversed the Google Play Services API, its utterly evil and you are correct that its about as far from open source as you can get

Can you please elaborate? Would love to hear more.

A good analogy. I always felt a little dirty using VScode. Back to tmux, vim a few months back like it has been for the last 20 odd years.

How do you run Cline on it

I don’t use any AI agents to write code. I spend most of my time undoing shit shows left by people who do.

oh ok

codium (now windsurf?) has a vim plugin : )

Codeium changed names to windsurf, Codium is still the same

There's lots of different AI agents now. It's not rocket science and conceptually they're all built the same.

I mean, it's Microsoft. We all knew that to an extent going in.

Google, on the other hand, pretended to be the FOSS crusader while setting themselves up for a ton of vendor lock-in that would not only have gotten 90s MS convicted on antitrust, but Bill Gates crucified on the National Mall.

Maybe I'm just old, but I find it so strange that you have to compare something from Microsoft to something else to indicate how evil it is. It's Microsoft.

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