Currently, the integration with OpenVSX is loosely coupled and boils down to a single CR property:

     pluginRegistry:
      openVSXURL: 'https://internal-self-hosted-openvsx/'

As of now, the process requires cluster admins to manage openvsx instance separately, as documented in the On-Premises docs - https://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_openshift_dev_spaces/3.26/html/administration_guide/managing-ide-extensions#running-the-open-vsx-on-premises 

There are definitely some benefits in managing Dev Spaces and OpenVSX separately in the different namespaces (and even clusters, potentially), but there should be an option on the CR level that would allow managing OpenVSX as an operand. Semantically, it should probably be under the existing `pluginRegistry`umbrella with the dedicated sections for conviguring OpenVSX components: 

• server
• cli
• postgres
• elasticsearch (not supported on IBM ppc64le / s390x for the time being)