vscode.md

product: Visual Studio Code
type: Code editors
layout: replace

Replace Visual Studio Code

While Visual Studio Code's source code is FOSS, the official builds are proprietary software. There are FOSS alternatives that create FOSS builds of Visual Studio Code.

This is evidenced by a comment made by a Microsoft developer:

When we [Microsoft] build Visual Studio Code, we do exactly this. We clone the vscode repository, we lay down a customized product.json that has Microsoft specific functionality (telemetry, gallery, logo, etc.), and then produce a build that we release under our license.

When you clone and build from the vscode repo, none of these endpoints are configured in the default product.json. Therefore, you generate a “clean” build, without the Microsoft customizations, which is by default licensed under the MIT license.

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VSCodium

Binary releases of VS Code without MS branding / telemetry / licensing.

{% infobox %}

• Website: vscodium.com
• Source code: GitHub
• License: MIT {% endinfobox %}

Compiling VSCode yourself

Microsoft have a guide for compiling your own copy of Visual Studio code.

{% infobox %}

• Guide: GitHub {% endinfobox %}