PApas·Dec 19, 2022
The actual repo seems MIT though https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/blob/main/LICEN... ... what is missing from this?
In Ending support for self-hosted Gitpod and moving our source to AGPLmicrosoft
vscode-cpptools
TypeScript2016–2025
microsoft / vscode-cpptools
vscode-cpptools
Official repository for the Microsoft C/C++ extension for VS Code.
22Distinct people
25Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
6.2KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Official repository for the Microsoft C/C++ extension for VS Code.
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
- vscodium/vscodium · linked in 3 of the same discussions
- microsoft/vscode-python · linked in 2 of the same discussions
Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 5:04:57 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year25 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2016-09-09 06:58:11 UTC to 2025-08-11 20:57:19 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 6 | 0 | 6 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 6 | 0 | 6 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 1 | 4 |
What Hacker News says
6 sources> I'd love to see someone downvoting me provide a compelling response to the full source available here under the MIT license
You are literally pointing to a github repo in order to respond to a complain about how MS makes github repos just to create the false appearence that their software is FLOSS.
For example, the C/C++ parser also appears to claim to be "MIT" licensed if you go to the repository:
https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/blob/main/LICEN...
However, it actually is not, by evidenced by the two line disclaimer at the beginning of that file. The entire thing is absolutely useless without the gigantic 100MB intellisense binary. Most definitely this does NOT rely on any functionality provided by "3rd party servers". It is entirely offline, 1st party code, that gets surreptitiously installed alongside the FLOSS "package"
Read the rest
. Likewise for C#, likewise for debugging, likewise for remote development, and a very long etc.
If this is not misleading, I don't know what is. The core editor being free is just a red herring here; most people think of VS code as an IDE, and are therefore disappointed by the "core editor" functionality offered by VSCodium. In fact, people will routinely ask me "why can't I use VS Code on RISC-V, if it's FLOSS?". These are knowledgeable people, and yet they are mislead by this.
While part of the C/C++ extension is MIT licensed. At runtime the extension downloads binary blobs which have a lot more restrictive license. See https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/tree/main/Runti... . This effectively makes it illegal to use the extension in non official Visual Studio Code builds like VSCodium. The situation is similar with C# extension.
There are alternative non Microsoft language servers for C++ and probably other languages which are fully open source and can be used in open source VSCode builds. But unfortunately some extensions depend specifically on the Microsoft language support extensions. For example Platform IO can't be published on OpenVSX due to this. https://github.com/platformio/platformio-vscode-ide/issues/1... . Similar with Unity debugger extension depending on microsoft C# extension.
In VSCodium – Free/Libre Open Source Software Binaries of VS CodeBoth the C/C++ and Python extensions seem to be open source, but I think you’re right about the remote development one.
https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-cpptools
https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-python
In VSCodium – Free/Libre Open Source Software Binaries of VS CodeApparently a bug in the CPP addon with uninitialised memory, doesn't repro with debug logging.
https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/issues/9041
In Visual Studio Code is randomly erasing included header files with latest updateIt's due to the C/C++ extension: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/issues/9041
In VSCode creates many empty file with invalid code automatically