If this is intended to be a VSCode alternative, where are the download area? Why the strong emphasis on cloud? A version 1.0 with no package released? need top run it on docker?
I don't want to sound negative, I would really want to download it an try it... but from what I see in a quick glance, they want me to setup a whole cloud to use this, not how I envision an editor that is trying to take on the most popular editor nowadays
Theia is a platform to allow building desktop and browser IDEs, not a product in itself. You can use it through gitpod.io on any GitHub or GitLab project.
The strong emphasize on browser/cloud is because we believe we have finally built a browser-based IDE that is as good as the most popular desktop IDE (VS Code). Having solved that cloud based IDEs are going to be the normal in a couple of years and will naturally complete our devops pipelines.
I don't want to sound negative, I would really want to download it an try it... but from what I see in a quick glance, they want me to setup a whole cloud to use this, not how I envision an editor that is trying to take on the most popular editor nowadays