The problem is that many parts of the ecosystem require that you use the official MS build.

You can't connect to the Marketplace and some extensions outright can't be used with a custom build.

You can however down the extension from the website and install it from the terminal.

codium --install-extension {path to .vsix}

You are able to do so, but is it allowed by the website's terms of service? It may say that you are granted the license to extensions only with Microsoft builds of vscode.

Microsoft isn't a stranger to distribution restrictions and software usage limitations. I remember uploading Visual C# Express 2010 (freely downloaded from Microsoft's website, without license keys) to a local file sharing website to ease the downloading for my local study group and got a letter from Microsoft's lawyer to take it down.

After that our study group transitioned to Mono with Monodevelop.

An actual example is that the Python LSP extension on the offical marketplace has some "DRM" that makes it pop up a fatal "You can't use this extension except with the real VSCode" error message. People have been playing whack-a-mole with it by editing the obfuscated JS to remove that check, or by using an older version from before they added the check. https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/discussions/1641

THE PLAN

1. Install the editor version free from proprietary stuff from big corporation

2. Install a proprietary editor extension by big corporation

3. ?????

I don't remember ging to the Website and agreeing to anything. I got vscodium from my package manager.

Terms of service? Who cares.

If you're idealogically opposed to Microsoft's editor, that doesn't seem to be a problem to me.

If you're ideologically opposed to Microsoft $FOO, you want to avoid putting yourself even further into their embrace.

Sorry, I should have been more specific and said FOSS. VSCode is still encumbered by the weight of a mega corp. It's like saying Chrome is open source. Sure it is, but it still exists to serve the corporation that owns it.

It's MIT licensed. So it's more FOSS than FOSS

It's free software in letter, but not in spirit. True free software doesn't lock out non-official builds for zero technical reasons.

what about vscodium? for that reason, what was iceweasel?

vscodium and VSCode forks are legally prevented from using the normal VSCode extension site. They have their own: https://open-vsx.org/

As far as I know Chrome forks are not blocked from using extensions from the Chrome Web Store.

*according to microsoft

There is some sort of vendor lock-in VSCode. It at least used to be extremely difficult to make GitHub Copilot to work with codium. There is something closed source in VSCode that makes the difference.

It was so difficult to maintain, that I ended up switching to VSCode. So the ”lock-in” worked.

The software is free, the extension site is not. I agree that's a shitty practice by MS, but it doesn't somehow make VSCode not free software.

It isn't 1860 anymore, "the freedom to take freedom away" no longer counts.

Tortured analogy.

In what way is VSCode comparable to enslaving human beings?

Exactly how?

It sounds like you are trying to define freedom as Stallman would. Based on that, here are his “4 freedoms”…

1. The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose.

2. The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

3. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.

4. The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others. By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

Which of the above does MIT not provide? Honestly, which one?

What you seem to be looking for is to take away the ability for somebody who writes NEW code to be able to choose a license for it. You want to take away their freedom?

And why exactly? What “user freedom” does this serve?

Well, it forces that users will get access to FUTURE code that developers write.

I think it is a stretch to suggest that a developer writing new code makes existing users less free. Forcing a license for the new code certainly does make the developer less free though.

If “having the freedom to take away freedom does not make a society more free” then the only morally acceptable choice is to stop using the GPL. Is that what you were trying to say?

In a way that is comparable to enslaving human beings?

When you enslave a human being, you take away someone's freedom. I'm not sure how to more clearly express this.

You mean when you force developers to adhere to your desires and force them to labour for free? Is that what you mean?

Who is forcing developers to work for free?

I mean look at the case of Spotify's Car Thing. They sell you a hardware product, and then they can discontinue it in the snap of a finger. Users are out money with little to no recourse. Luckily Spotify is refunding customers, but only if they ask for it, but that isn't always the case for the discontinuation of hardware. Without free, as in freedom, software customers become enslaved to capitalism where they have to buy the newest hardware because their OEM only supports hardware for a certain amount of time. With free software, I can take the software from the vendor and provide updates to the product for much longer amounts of time. But because people want to use MIT, BSD-2/3-clause, Apache-2.0, et. al., consumers cannot reap the full benefits of what Free and Open Source Software truly means.

It's not F/OSS at all. It's proprietary software with some open-source components, which together comprise VSCodium.

You mean except for all of the good plugins. Or the ability to use a custom plugin store. Last I read, the open builds struggled with removing all of the MS telemetry and some may still be leaking.