microsoft repos in linux!

[zborgerd]

Meanwhile, you're using an "open source" device on closed hardware that includes binary-only software to make it work.

I agree with you about RPi.  Just another device / company riding on the current popularity of "open source" whilst in reality being nothing of the sort.

Remember, there are many more interesting alternatives to Raspberry Pi nowadays (including all Pine64 devices)!

Does it ship by default with VS Code? It's a good cross-platform tool that works equally well on Linux as it does on Windows. I use it on both platforms for work (Windows) and my home machines (Linux).

Eh, I am not such a fan of Microsoft, either.  Remember, they have been extremely hostile towards F/LOSS for decades.  Which is why I am not buying that they suddenly "got religion" about it recently.  More like, they had to, or else become irrelevant.  Just let them die off already (along with any of these other companies who also practice similar dinosaur business models).  None of them deserve to be a part of the collaborative future we are creating together.

Yes, VS Code is released under an open source license.  However, it still contains spyware and other nonsense.  Microsoft is not your friend, and they will never learn nor really change (i.e., wake me up when they release the crown jewels (Windows, Office, etc.) under a F/LOSS license). 

I disable the telemetry "features" of VS Code. There is a version that strips some of that out along with some of the other Microsoft components. Some people use that.

They definitely didn't "get religion". They are a corporation who is in it to make money and they seem to realize that cross-platform tools are valuable from that perspective. I remember when Linux users were freaking out over inclusion of Mono in their distributions. Was that paranoia warranted? That was before it was even owned by Microsoft. .Net is a valuable tool regardless of the platform that you use and several components have required it for over a decade now, especially on Gnome.

I agree that Microsoft isn't necessarily trustworthy, but some of the paranoia from the FOSS community is borderline lunacy. It's very hard if not impossible to have a completely open platform, for now. We're getting there though. But some people are not looking at the obvious black boxes in their computers. They've got an Intel Management Engine backdoor running at the lowest level, or they are running nVidia drivers on their Linux desktops or something like Broadcom Videocore drivers on their RPis. Yet their concern is Microsoft being nefarious without looking at the greater issues with their computing platforms.

I work in an environment where I have to balance the best features of free or closed software. I still don't trust Google enough to stick in the Android ecosystem, or else I wouldn't be here. But the RPi thing; It never was completely "open source" and probably never will be. But it's geared towards a lot of hobbyists that use Windows more often than strict Linux users, and is also positioning itself and platform as an easy and cheap alternative to Windows computers. See the all-in-one keyboard kits as an example.