I'm Passing on the GitHub CoPilot CLI Challenge

Publish Date: Jan 30

24 18

I'm an advocate of AI - both small and large language models. I'm also an advocate of dev.to, which I consider the best site of its kind. But as a Linux user, I have to skip this latest challenge - due solely to the fact that GitHub CoPilot is a Microsoft product.

It's hard to separate a product from its parent company’s broader philosophy. Microsoft's recent moves — the release of the telemetry-ridden Windows 11 OS and the forced obsolescence of perfectly functional hardware by ending Windows 10 support — these are practices I can't support.

This extends to GitHub CoPilot - it's not the agentic nature that bothers me - that the application is able to view my files and directories and execute commands. It's that this process isn't locally confined to my machine - it is, in fact, bundled and piped to Microsoft’s Azure servers.

As Linux users, we move to distros like Debian or Arch to escape these "call-home" binaries and we reject any kind of forced ecosystem lock-in. I'm simply not installing a cloud-tethered agent that reports my terminal contents and activity to a central server at Microsoft.

Again, this isn't a reflection on dev.to - like many others, I enjoy these high-profile challenges. I'd just prefer that the agentic instrument was different. There is incredible work being done in the local AI space. In fact, Microsoft's own Phi series of SLMs are excellent models.

We don't need a cloud connection in order to run a smart CLI agent on our PC. Open-source tools like ollama, llama.cpp, and local MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers prove that we can enjoy "agentic" assistance while keeping 100% of our data on our own silicon.

Zero Exfiltration: 100% of system probing stays on your NVMe.

No Telemetry: No Microsoft account or HTTPS requests to Azure.

Good Luck to those taking on this challenge - I'll be sitting this one out.

Ben S.

Comments 18 total

Richard PascoeJan 30, 2026
Thanks for posting this, Ben. As someone hoping to step fully away from Big Tech this year, I really appreciate you taking the time to discuss the Co-Pilot challenge.

I’m not an active supporter of the BDS movement against Microsoft, but I’ve chosen to follow their guidance in practice. I’m no longer a Game Pass subscriber, I’m moving from Xbox to PlayStation, and I won’t be purchasing games from Microsoft Studios or using any Microsoft products or services in the future.

This has been a personal decision, and I completely understand that it’s not something everyone is interested in or able to do themselves.
- Ben Santora Jan 30, 2026
  Richard - agreed. The BDS movement is something different - my reasons for boycotting them include policies like planned obsolescence driving e-waste and invasive telemetry.
  - Richard PascoeJan 30, 2026
    Indeed, Ben, I agree that the BDS movement is a different animal. That said, I’m on the same page as you when it comes to e-waste and telemetry - Windows 11 didn’t need things like the TDM requirement, for example. On my sole remaining Windows 11 machine, I’ve turned off every piece of tracking and telemetry I could, and I won’t be using Visual Studio Code either.
leobJan 30, 2026
And that's while Microsoft is arguably already "less terrible" than in the heyday of Steve Ballmer, and their thug-like anti-competitive extortion practices versus OEMs (hardware companies) who had the temerity to consider offering Linux on their PCs - they would be threatened with "no more Windows for you" !

Luckily they've been reigned in, and had to stop those practices ("under duress", not of their own volition) - and yes, Satya Nadella is a far more benign character than Steve or even Bill, but completely innocent they are not - they're still trying to pull tricks, and they still have an iron grip on the enterprise software/IT market ...

P.S. well, I loathe Windows and will avoid it like the plague, let me put it like that :-)
- Richard PascoeJan 30, 2026
  Very well said, Leob! We must remember that even Bill Gates wasn’t above lying either - but that’s a story for another time and place.
  
  With regard to Nadell - who has become increasingly worried about the AI bubble bursting of late - I still shake my head over his self-motivated statement that we need to move "beyond the arguments of [AI] slop vs sophistication."
  
  Again, my decision to move away from Microsoft specifically, and Big Tech more generally, is very much a personal choice that I understand not everyone can or will follow - but I appreciate that you feel the same way about Windows in particular!
  - leobJan 30, 2026
    Windows is just terrible, on that we simply agree ...
    - Richard PascoeJan 30, 2026
      Indeed, Sir, we do!
- Ben Santora Jan 30, 2026
  they've still got an iron grip on the enterprise software/IT market ...
  
  And an iron grip on PC manufacturers. Roughly 90-95% of (non-Mac ) desktops ship with Windows pre-installed, dominating new PC sales in the global marked, despite ChromeOS and Linux niches. Most non-technical PC users simply accept that the Windows OS is the only way to run a PC.
  - leobJan 30, 2026
    Yes - it's still way too HARD to get Linux on your PC, because, yes, PCs come with Windows preinstalled by default, and you have to jump through hoops to run anything else ... the amount of $$$ that MS has squeezed/extorted from both the consumer and the business market over the years is mind-boggling!
    - Richard PascoeJan 30, 2026
      I’m glad I finally took the plunge and installed Manjaro Linux on an old laptop. Believe it or not, my 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 was my daily driver for quite a while!
      
      But you’re spot on, leob - the reason Windows 11 is still on my new laptop is simply that it came pre-installed, and I haven’t gotten around to changing it… yet!
rkeevesJan 30, 2026
Hi Ben, I am a Senior Software Engineer with 153 years of experience and I work on floor 5 orange zone cubicle E67.

I worked on this project for 54 years with all of my heart, and I know a lot of smart people from academia and public sector too.

I'd like to politely ask you to put the telemetry back in.

Please, put the telemetry back in
👾 FrancisTRDev 👾Jan 30, 2026
I respect your decision! Main reason for me is that it cost money to use GitHub Copilot CLI as it seems. I am looking for opportunities that are more "open" than having to create an account just to participate. But that's my opinion on it. Thanks for sharing!
- Ben Santora Jan 30, 2026
  Francis - I've been experimenting with SLMs using llama-cli - and llama3.1 model - all in the terminal. Just the CPU can be enough, especially if your PC has AVX - it's not agentic, but it's free, open-source and local.
  - 👾 FrancisTRDev 👾Jan 30, 2026
    Heard of it! Never got into it yet but it does seem convenient. Thanks for reminding me!
EmberNoGlowJan 30, 2026
I'm not a big fan of Windows 11 or 10; I prefer 7, but I had to switch because 70% of modern programs don't run on Windows 7. Telemetry is actually easy to disable using a firewall and a hosts file, but it's time-consuming. So, until I recently upgraded to 10, I used VxKex.
Hadil Ben AbdallahJan 31, 2026
Really thoughtful take, Ben. Totally get where you’re coming from. Being pro-AI doesn’t mean being pro-telemetry or cloud lock-in. Respect for sticking to your principles and for calling out the solid local-AI alternatives that already exist.
Hopefully future challenges leave room for tools that keep everything on-device.
- Ben Santora Jan 31, 2026
  Thanks, Hadil.
Ben SinclairJan 31, 2026
I am absolutely not an advocate of AI, but I'll put that aside to generally agree with you. The future we get is either the future Big Tech wants, or the future we want. It's a Venn diagram, but the overlap is shrinking as we go further into the 21st century. I think that more and more people are choosing to avoid the overlap altogether because it's dangerous - Microsoft will never shake the stigma of its original Embrace, Extend, Extinguish policy.

(Another) Ben S.

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Ben Santora @ben-santora

I'm Passing on the GitHub CoPilot CLI Challenge

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