<h1class="content-title">Haxe, heaps, and VSCode (small rant)</h1><spanclass="content-meta"><pclass="author">[Phil Bajsicki]</p><pclass="date">2022-10-10</p><span>2 min read </span><ahref="http://localhost:1313/tags/proprietary">proprietary</a> <ahref="http://localhost:1313/tags/vscode">vscode</a> <ahref="http://localhost:1313/tags/vendorlock">vendorlock</a> <ahref="http://localhost:1313/categories/software">@software</a> <ahref="http://localhost:1313/categories/tech">@tech</a> </span></section>
<p>is deliberately <em>hidden</em> from the FOSS version of Code. I was unable to install and use it until I switched over to the binary release of Code that Microsoft provides.</p>
<p>I can see no reason why that would be the case. Haxe is Open Source, GPLv2 and MIT licensed. Heaps and Hashlink are licensed under the MIT license.</p>
<p>What possible reason could there be to gatekeep access to the main supported IDE solution behind proprietary software with built-in telemetry and very restrictive access to the way it works?</p>
<p>I can’t think of one. I feel like the Haxe Foundation should give a clearer explanation for setting the environment up.</p>
<p>Eventually I managed to get a tracker-free VS Code installed, by using <ahref="https://vscodium.com/">VSCodium</a>, which is a fully FOSS distribution of VSCode. I also used a <ahref="https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/vscodium-bin-marketplace">patch from the AUR</a> to enable the marketplace and actually make things work.</p>