Visual Studio Code is a fantastic advert for the Microsoft brand ... If people have a bad experience with Windows, why would they be inclined to get other services from MS?
Ironically, we decided not to try out VS Code specifically because of privacy/security concerns about Microsoft that have been heightened since Windows 10. We checked Microsoft's written policies to see what sort of telemetry data was being uploaded. We were unable to find any detailed information about it, and the general wording appeared to allow for uploading more-or-less anything, up to and including our own code.
into vscode settings and you are fine wrt telemetry.
What concerns me more is that the .rpm build is consistently later than other builds. Usually it means, that the user is staring 2 out of 4 weeks every month on update notification, that cannot be used, because the build is not ready yet.
It brings back the memories of MSIE and WMP that used to be available for Solaris and HP-UX, always slightly later... until they weren't and the users were left in the dark.
The problem is the trust thing, not the telemetry thing.
Yes, exactly, and trust is hard to earn but easily lost. Given the corporate philosophy of Nadella's Microsoft, and the fact that Nadella was made CEO in the first place when it was pretty clear what style of leader he was going to be, I don't see Microsoft ever regaining the kind of trust we used to place in it without fundamental changes that start at the highest levels. And sadly, as long as investors continue to buy into that vision, those changes are highly unlikely.
It's not often I feel so strongly about a business, but Microsoft's actions in recent years almost feel like a personal betrayal after being being their customer for so long and trusting them as a keystone of the tech industry. In this case, I really do regard them as "the enemy" now, and I really do hope that someone else will drive a wedge through a gap created by their customer-hostile strategy with painful and expensive consequences for their management and investors.
Ironically, we decided not to try out VS Code specifically because of privacy/security concerns about Microsoft that have been heightened since Windows 10. We checked Microsoft's written policies to see what sort of telemetry data was being uploaded. We were unable to find any detailed information about it, and the general wording appeared to allow for uploading more-or-less anything, up to and including our own code.