Harvey
Just tracing back to this post for a second as I too had similar ideas as @touzain about VS Code in the Solus repository. I have started reading up on how licensing works to gain better understanding; as I understand it currently, in this case, Microsoft takes the 'VS Code' source under the MIT license and then bakes in their own software released under a Microsoft license.
Solus takes the VS Code source and builds it and release it with a GPL and MIT license. If I'm then not mistaken, the VS Code program in the Solus repository does not contain the telemetry?
I understand this is a very elementary question, but easily misunderstood for those new to open source software (OSS). I too am guilty of that, even after reading up a little on licensing. Perhaps my biggest question is what is different from VS Code in the Solus repository compared to the Microsoft VS Code. Is it vanilla from source or does the Solus team disable certain aspects?
In the meantime I am continuing to learn about OSS and licensing, this being one part of it.