Visual Studio Code (vscode) - License expires?

Question

I just found Visual Studio Code (http://code.visualstudio.com) and wanted to give it a try. But when I read the license terms (yes - I really did) I saw the following point:

2. TIME-SENSITIVE SOFTWARE. The software will stop running on 31/12/2016 (day/month/year). You will not receive any other notice. You may not be able to access data used with the software when it stops running.

This seems a bit strange. What happens after the end of the year - in the worst case I will not be able to use it any more, or maybe it will not be free any more but I need to pay? There might be other reasons for this term - does anyone know?

Answer 1

This is a great question. I am a Program Manager on the Visual Studio Code team and happy to try to answer it.

Typically our pre-release software has an expiration defined in the license to encourage moving to officially released versions of products when they become available. Released products generally have different license terms, support policies, data collection policies, etc.

Visual Studio Code follows this model. It is currently in "Beta" and has a 31 Dec 2016 termination date in its license. We chose that date because we felt it was well outside the timeframe in which we would delare general availablity ("GA" or "1.0") and become an officially released product. The in product expiration helps with compliance because the product will not run after the license expires.

When we declare GA we will make two significant changes to the license. First, we are removing the termination date from the license and from the product. Second, we will allow users opt-out of data collection. VS Code will continue to be free and Insiders builds will always be Beta.

Thanks again for asking the question, I hope this explanation makes it more clear. I'll post a link to this in our wiki.