12 ms·

The Day AppGet Died (2020)

227 points by q2loyp 5y ago

pwr-electronics 5y ago
> the outcome of the meeting as far as I understood it was, what can Microsoft do to help? Here's the problem. That's sales talk. If you're not buying, either give your sales pitch or quote them for consulting.
david_allison 5y ago
(2020)
- q2loyp 5y ago
  Corrected, thanks
scim-knox-twox 5y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=keivan.io https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=keivan.io
- piceas 5y ago
  The Day AppGet Died (keivan.io) 1930 points by lostmsu on May 27, 2020 | past | 535 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23331287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23331287
a2tech 5y ago
Don’t ever forget that at its core Microsoft is still the same company we grew up with. Just because they’re singing sweet songs now doesn’t mean they’re fundamentally different. I know that there are a lot of developers on here that disagree with me and are all in on the ‘new’ Microsoft. I can’t change your mind. Ive watched Microsoft since the early 90s though and they’ve never really changed—-and buying GitHub and releasing some things as open source doesn’t change things a bit.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  There are still a few of us who remember; I've tried posting responses here when the Nadella Kool-Aid gets too thick. But on the whole, kids nowadays -- even on here -- are far too easily impressed by superficial "Internet and Open Source-friendly" bling-bling BS. (Geroffmylawn, punks.)
- causi 5y ago
  Just because they’re singing sweet songs now doesn’t mean they’re fundamentally different. Frankly I think it's only because Google, Facebook, et al. invented new kinds of evil too fast for Microsoft to keep up that they seemed warm and fuzzy at all. They're still the company that force-upgraded users to Windows 10, and they're still the company that's requiring you to have a Microsoft account for future versions of Windows 11.
  - simion314 5y ago
    And they are the company that bought Skype, forced me to create Microsoft accounts and then mess things up, now they boutght Minecraft and I just receive an ultimatum to switch my Mojang account to a Microsoft account. F U MS, can't you let me login with existing shit,. On a different topic, I am using some MS APIs at work (TTS stuff) and my impression of this MS products is bad, it feels like different teams that hate each other were forced to work on this shit and some other team is forced to cover it up with documentation. I don't recommend MS stuff if you have alternatives.
    - moron4hire 5y ago
      What are you talking about? Microsoft's Text-To-Speech APIs are the best on the market. Google's are definitely a distant second: not as many languages, not as many voices, and the output is nowhere near as good. After those two, there isn't really anything left worth mentioning.
      - causi 5y ago
        Microsoft's Text-To-Speech APIs are the best on the market. Wow, I had no idea they were that good. Is there a way to get at them from a consumer level? For example, there are plenty of e-reader apps that use Google's TTS to read epub books as audiobooks. Anything similar for Microsoft or is it all on the developer side?
kh_hk 5y ago
I say the following not knowing anything about appget internals. I hope I could find proper words to express the sour feelings when there's not enough credit given. It's always easy to dismiss something as: "gee, thats the obvious way to do it, there's nothing unique about it". Novel ideas always turn out to be obvious once they are implemented. The foundations of knowledge are based on the same principle. Standing on the shoulders of giants. The contrary, not giving credit, is just the nasty opposite. Appearing taller, by standing on your shoulders.
- svnpenn 5y ago
  Exactly. Some "simple solution" might just be the end result of months or years of different iterations. Sometimes you can't know the best method until you've slowly and methodically tried all the worse ones.
alias_neo 5y ago
I've read this several times before, and every time I do it hurts just as much. Every time I read of another person who built something useful, so much so that it gets recognised by big-corp X, and being called in by Google or Microsoft, promised the recognition (and pay) they deserve, then having the rug pulled at light-speed from under them, I take it personally. I'm amazed, every time I read "The Day AppGet Died" at the restraint shown, which makes it hurt that little bit more. Keivan should probably be a (multi) millionaire now, sitting comfortably with his family doing whatever it is they enjoy doing. Instead, someone at Microsoft used this as a way to get themselves a promotion. Don't be fooled by the lipstick, Microsoft has never stopped being EEEvil.
- fraktl 5y ago
- luciusdomitius 5y ago
  Well. Cold reality is that even 5-year old kids know what sort of company MSFT is and what sort of people work for them. He acted like an useful fool, got treated like one. I even smirked a bit at his misery, even though I am normally not that kind of person. Had he instead reacted to the phone call with some extremely aggressive licensing, maybe even a software patent, now he would be discussing the terms of the out of court settlement and choosing a color for individual seats in his new 7-series.
  - Shared404 5y ago
    > Cold reality is that even 5-year old kids know what sort of company MSFT is and what sort of people work for them. Mate, 80% of college students don't know that. Source: Work at a computer repair shop and see shocked faces.
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      Then again most five-year-olds seem smarter than most college students.
transfire 5y ago
What open source license did AppGet use? Seemed to me we need some carefully worded clause that help provide some compensation if something like this happens. But M$ should be ashamed of themselves for not at least offering some compensation.
- pedro2 5y ago
  AFAIK they copied no code. Just everything else.
- magpi3 5y ago
  Apache. And winget-cli is licensed under the MIT license. So although the licenses are incompatible, the end result would have been the same even if Microsoft had simply forked winget with the Apache license, although in that case they would have had to credit the original author, and the lack of credit is the original author's main issue with how this was handled.
- notriddle 5y ago
  It didn’t matter what license he used, because Microsoft reimplemented it from scratch anyway.
allisdust 5y ago
Wow that's quite a disgusting thing to do. It's surprising how measured his take was. It's a loss for them not him as I don't think he would have fit in such backbiting culture. The whole episode is a warning for anyone developing open source stuff and is talking to MS or any big company.
orangepurple 5y ago
Now I understand what Tuco meant when he said "Sometimes you gotta rob to keep your riches."
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
Here's an oldie, but goodie: http://www.theparticle.com/fun/fun.php?topic=microsoft&id=1809 http://www.theparticle.com/fun/fun.php?topic=microsoft&id=18...
morelish 5y ago
Good read. I’ve used chocolatey a lot plus a lot of other Microsoft installation tools. Windows has been crying out for a decent package manager for years. It’s amazing how little of a sh*t Microsoft seemed to give about stuff that open-source systems provide as a first class citizen. As they care next-to-zero about decent tooling, it’s no surprise they care even less about independent developers like Keivan. I’m pretty sure Windows is going to turn into a Linux kernel with a Windows API translation layer and specialised UI system for ordinary Joes. I think it’s probably a lot more efficient that way and Microsoft has already lost the kernel battle to Linux. With the shift to the cloud, I assume Azure will become Microsoft’s dominant revenue stream, with Office second and Windows third. At least that my guess.
- chem83 5y ago
  There's very little incentive to adopt Linux as a kernel given how popular Microsoft is with consumer grade OEMs developing for the WHQL driver program. That's one point of competitive advantage Microsoft would be nuts to let go off. Also, sysinternals and psh alone are very compelling examples of sophisticated tooling for the Windows ecosystem. So much so that they were ported to other platforms for the Windows users wanting to explore Mac and Linux. And while Microsoft failed so far to create a decent package management solution for Windows, the problem really isn't how to manage packages, but rather how Win32 software assumes certain levels of access to system internals. This problem was mostly solved with the introduction of MSIX, so Microsoft needs to find a better carrot to incentivize developers to deploy with MSIX so winget can work properly.
WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
I dunno, getting inspired and copying all the ideas, deciding that they can do a good enough job internally instead of hiring Keivan doesn’t sound like a bad thing in and of itself. It’s the stringing along that makes my blood boil. After reading things like this, I’m thinking, what I’d do differently? Maybe have them reimburse all my travel upfront. No money, no meetings. Also, bill all the meetings and conversations. Up front, given their reputation from this story. They want to spend my time, better show how serious they are. No money, no meetings, no false hopes. But they know young geeks can be excited that someone at THE Microsoft noticed them, like in the Hollywood success stories, and walk an extra mile. Who knows, I could have lost my shit 20 years ago. This straight up exploitation irks me to no end. Reminds me of rock stars bedding teenage fangirls and similar shit, maybe this is why.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- john_moscow 5y ago
  >I dunno, getting inspired and copying all the ideas, deciding that they can do a good enough job internally instead of hiring Keivan doesn’t sound like a bad thing in and of itself. It just completely kills the motivation to make any kind of system tools like this. If your tool fails, you have wasted your time. If it succeeds, the OS vendor will kill it overnight with a free knock-off, so you have also wasted your time. OS/platform vendors should know it better if they want to maintain a thriving ecosystem of contributors, but nobody seems to care anymore. Shops knocking off most successful products with store brands, Apple doing the same with some popular apps, Amazon Basics, this. And then we wonder why so many people are depressed and don't see a future for themselves anymore.
  - piyh 5y ago
    You could release your code with a less permissive license (say excluding companies with a 1 trillion dollar market cap) so they at least have to play ball with you.
    - 5y ago
fnord77 5y ago
was there some way to have prevented or mitigated this?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  Don't know about the cloning of his product, but in terms of negotiation: Don't let yourself get strung along just because someone waves something you want in front of your face. It's absolutely vital in any negotiation that you set boundaries and that you are are willing to walk away if those boundaries aren't respected. Especially if you really want what they are offering. In all, it seems the ball spent a lot of the time in their court, and not a lot in his. Either they want the guy or they don't, he shouldn't have to spend months jumping through hoops for the position if they are legitimately interested in his work. It kinda reads like a Nigeria scam: Just give us one more month and you'll get the money, I swear. It's tied up with customs right now, so if you could just do this one thing... Whatever bureaucracy they have to deal with is entirely their problem, not his. This tedious non-committal nonsense is not something you should tolerate from anyone. Sure if it's a 2 person startup things may not be smooth, but this is Microsoft we're talking about. They should have their shit together more than that. Within the general context of someone offering you a position based on your work, they have the privilege of talking to you and should be expected to treat you at least like a peer and not like some random job applicant desperate to get hired. I don't mean to suggest you should be a diva about it, but that you should respect yourself and be willing to say no to anyone who doesn't.
derkoe 5y ago
Please don't use any of these. Use scoop - it just works https://github.com/ScoopInstaller/scoop https://github.com/ScoopInstaller/scoop No admin needed for almost all packages, "scoop update *" to update your system, authoring packages is very easy.
- chem83 5y ago
  I like an I use scoop alongside winget after many years of Chocolatey, but there are many packages not available through scoop, mostly because there isn't a viable portable way to install them. Also, scoop does nothing to take advantage of the MSIX Containers that sandbox apps, so that they can be cleanly update and later removed. I'm considering automating the conversion of my most used apps to MSIX, so they can get always installed in a clean way. That may break certain apps like Steam, which need to install outside the virtual FS, but I hear MSIX supports global registry an global FS access exceptions nowadays, so not all hope is lost.
  - Jenk 5y ago
    All scoop does is extract installers/archives from the applications own portable distributions, and then create shims for them. Scoop packages aren't actually packages. They are just manifests that point to a URL to the apps download, and a list of executables to make shims/shortcuts for and that is it. There's the nonportable bucket for apps that have er.. nonportable versions.
- JoBrad 5y ago
  For anyone new to scoop, it is seriously The way that package management should work, in Windows. Apps install as the user (so no admin needed), and scoop uses a “current” symlink to point to the current version of the apps you have installed. Switching between versions or even hard-linking to a specific version is trivial. I was a little disappointed to see that some folks are ditching it for winget. While we definitely don’t need to go back to the Wild West “install things wherever you want” days, Windows needs a good package management ecosystem that works responsibly.
fartcannon 5y ago
This is why you use, at the very least, a version of the GPL. But he used Apache. So he basically did Microsofts job for them for free.
- protomyth 5y ago
  They didn't use his code so license is irrelevant.
- Hakashiro 5y ago
  Like someone else mentioned, this is not a source code issue. I think 90% of the people who got pissed back then thought Microsoft stole the code: get this, they didn't steal anything. One is C++ and the other is C# so it is literally impossible for a license to matter here. This would have been solved only with software patents. But I can very easily guess you're against software patents, aren't you? Or only when they're used by big evil corporations. I hope next time you put a little thought into things you get outraged about. Oh, and the cherry on top is you victim-shaming him. "So stupid, he used the wrong license". You claim to with the good fight but in reality you only want to win Internet battles to enlarge your own ego.
  - fartcannon 5y ago
  - psd1 5y ago
    That's pretty fervent. I think you're worked up about what you wish the parent had said. You should have left it at the first paragraph.
axiomdata316 5y ago
It's kind of sad but it looks like Kevin hasn't posted anything since this. I hope this experience didn't break him.
- jmcgough 5y ago
  from https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/2/21277863/microsoft-winget-windows-package-manager-appget-response-credit-comment https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/2/21277863/microsoft-winget-...: "We reached out to Beigi to comment on the blog post and Microsoft’s overall response, but the developer says he’s still in discussions with Microsoft over the issue." That seems like it happened unrelated to giving him additional credit. I wonder if they offered him something to sign a non-disparagement agreement.
pengwing 5y ago
As founder and main developer of a product, I feel that both the first suggestion of an aqui-hire and the second suggestion of getting a regular job at MSFT are completely ludicrous. Far too weak. Framing this as becoming an employee at MSFT directly establishes a position of inferiority. This should have been about a licensing deal with the option to purchase some premium support on top to facilitate the integration. A B2B deal will never involve HR. You don't have to be a tough negotiator yourself, but then please seek advice from a manager representing you.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  Yeah unless you are a Kernighan or Torvalds or Vanrossum aqui-hire doesn't seem like a real thing because middle management can never stand to have someone who isn't 100% under their power.
joshu 5y ago
I had a similar story with Yahoo but rejected the job offer. A few years later they had to buy the company anyway.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  Yeah this is a learning lesson no doubt. Management of a company can never put up with a person who isn't 100% under their control. Only the top 0.001% of developers will get away with that. Better to realize they want what you have and you have to figure out some way to get a handle on that or realize like this poor guy in a year some internal team has copied what you did and they have 100x the resources that you have.
andix 5y ago
I don’t get why he was so upset about it. Microsoft didn’t want to accept his offer. But still WinGet is not as good as AppGet. So if he just had kept going his way with AppGet, maybe WinGet would have never gotten any traction. Like a lot of projects, Microsoft more or less abandoned WinGet right away. You still can’t do „winget update“ and update all your installed packages. For me one of the main features of a package manager.
- chem83 5y ago
  Won't 'winget upgrade --all' do the trick for you?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
LeonB 5y ago
This caused a big splash at the time. Here’s some links on ‘what happened next’ (though I’d love to know what else has happened since!) - “Microsoft finally gives AppGet developer the credit he deserves” (https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2020/6/2/21277863/microsoft-winget-windows-package-manager-appget-response-credit-comment https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2020/6/2/21277863/micr...) Microsoft response: - “winget install learning” by “Andrew” at Microsoft (https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/winget-install-learning/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/winget-install-le...)
- gdcbe 5y ago
  I find it a bit shallow that they throw around these words so easily. The apologies would have a bit more worth IMHO if they actually would compensate him financially for the foundational work. Sure it’s not a legal requirement but I do believe it is the right thing to do and it’s not like they would feel it…
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    There wasn't anything foundational. The author himself said he wanted to replicate the package managers available on Linux.
jka 5y ago
Note that Microsoft currently sponsors the author of AppGet on GitHub. (that began some time between 2021-04-16 and 2021-05-19 according to archive.org) [1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20210416144938/https://github.com/kayone https://web.archive.org/web/20210416144938/https://github.co... [2] - https://web.archive.org/web/20210519125607/https://github.com/kayone https://web.archive.org/web/20210519125607/https://github.co...
- dustinmoris 5y ago
  Prince Andrew has also just paid his victims cough a person he has never met.
  - jka 5y ago
    There's a potential interpretation of Microsoft's sponsorship as "a financial gesture to minimize a problem", sure. Without knowing more about the story, though (and there's no requirement for the author or Microsoft to share more details), perhaps we won't really know.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
908B64B197 5y ago
This story gets reposted on HN quite often, and makes it to the front page. Several things don't add up in it. The author claims that code was copied but I looked at both repos and they share no code at all. [0] [1] In his article, the author claims that " If I were the patenting type, this would be the thing you would patent. ps. I don't regret not patenting anything." That's really not how patents work, and looking at the repo, a second year CS student could do the same really. I don't see anything that could remotely be patented. It reads where to find the installer from a config file and determine what to do based on an enum. He himself goes on to say he tried replicating the user experience from several existing package managers available on Linux. And Microsoft did create Nuget 12 years prior to AppGet. I’ll give some leeway to the author since I don’t think the author ever filed for a patent so he might not be familiar with the concept of prior art. Throughout the article the author uses the term acqui-hire but it seems Microsoft was simply considering him for a PM position (and he failed the interview). There's nothing to acquire since there's no patent, no IP and no brand. Only a registered domain and what seems like an anemic userbase, if any. I’ve done acqui-hires in the past and that’s not what the author describes. First you never deal with HR, there’s no regular interview (especially not at a hiring event and with other candidate present) and there’s always a contract. I get that the author isn’t really in a tier one market so he might not be familiar with how it’s done (or maybe customs are different where he’s from?) but what should have tipped him is that he never spoke to anyone from legal about licenses, only to an engineer who then referred him to HR… However, the author is quite clever. Being featured in The Verge[0] and on HN's front page will probably bring a lot more eyeballs to the startups he's trying to promote. So congratulation to him for the free advertising! [0] https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli [1] https://github.com/appget/appget https://github.com/appget/appget [2] https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/28/21272964/microsoft-winget-windows-package-manager-appget-copied https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/28/21272964/microsoft-winget...
- jmcgough 5y ago
  He never claims that his code was copied - just that they used the same approach and a lot of similar patterns. Regardless of what happened, it sounds like they left him hanging without even the courtesy of a follow-up email. Going from being ghosted to having MS release their own version of your OSS project after they've asked you a lot of technical details about how it works would leave a sour taste in anyone's mouth. Most people don't get acquihired, so I don't blame him for not understanding how it works (nor is he from the states). What he's really talking about is being hired to keep working on AppGet, he's not talking about having the project itself acquired (since it's an OSS license). I doubt there was intentional malice here but they really screwed up in how they communicated with him, and that can't help encourage devs to work on the windows ecosystem.
ijidak 5y ago
I'd recommend retaining a lawyer as soon as a large company like Microsoft reaches out to you. (Even if it's just for your private education of risks, rights and strategy.) Alternatively, start billing for time and travel immediately. If they don't want to pay, tell them to meet you locally. (Let them incur travel expenses.) This will force the company to demonstrate their intent. If they balk at both requests, this shows that: 1. They don't have managerial approval for their escapade. Or... 2. They intend to take advantage of you to the extent that they can. Either way, it shows they need to get their ducks in a row. And prepare themselves to treat your time as valuable.
KnobbleMcKnees 5y ago
I remember reading this when it was first posted and sensing that there was some disconnect between the author and Microsoft. The reframing of the hiring as not part of a wider career at Microsoft seems exactly as it sounds - "ok, you don't have to do the stuff we've suggested ... But we still want AppGet". And then this: > We talked about some of our options, but in general, I thought everything went well. It's quite clear that it didn't go that well, isn't it? I'm not defending Microsoft here or suggesting that this was the exact outcome the author was seeking, but I sense a bit of naivety in interpreting what Microsoft were driving towards. Ultimately they clearly decided the effort of a grounds up redesign / rewrite was more valuable than bring him along for the ride.

227 points by q2loyp 5y ago

> the outcome of the meeting as far as I understood it was, what can Microsoft do to help? Here's the problem. That's sales talk. If you're not buying, either give your sales pitch or quote them for consulting.

david_allison 5y ago

(2020)

q2loyp 5y ago
Corrected, thanks

scim-knox-twox 5y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=keivan.io https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=keivan.io

piceas 5y ago
The Day AppGet Died (keivan.io) 1930 points by lostmsu on May 27, 2020 | past | 535 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23331287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23331287

a2tech 5y ago

Don’t ever forget that at its core Microsoft is still the same company we grew up with. Just because they’re singing sweet songs now doesn’t mean they’re fundamentally different. I know that there are a lot of developers on here that disagree with me and are all in on the ‘new’ Microsoft. I can’t change your mind. Ive watched Microsoft since the early 90s though and they’ve never really changed—-and buying GitHub and releasing some things as open source doesn’t change things a bit.

CRConrad 5y ago
There are still a few of us who remember; I've tried posting responses here when the Nadella Kool-Aid gets too thick. But on the whole, kids nowadays -- even on here -- are far too easily impressed by superficial "Internet and Open Source-friendly" bling-bling BS. (Geroffmylawn, punks.)
causi 5y ago
Just because they’re singing sweet songs now doesn’t mean they’re fundamentally different. Frankly I think it's only because Google, Facebook, et al. invented new kinds of evil too fast for Microsoft to keep up that they seemed warm and fuzzy at all. They're still the company that force-upgraded users to Windows 10, and they're still the company that's requiring you to have a Microsoft account for future versions of Windows 11.
- simion314 5y ago
  And they are the company that bought Skype, forced me to create Microsoft accounts and then mess things up, now they boutght Minecraft and I just receive an ultimatum to switch my Mojang account to a Microsoft account. F U MS, can't you let me login with existing shit,. On a different topic, I am using some MS APIs at work (TTS stuff) and my impression of this MS products is bad, it feels like different teams that hate each other were forced to work on this shit and some other team is forced to cover it up with documentation. I don't recommend MS stuff if you have alternatives.
  - moron4hire 5y ago
    What are you talking about? Microsoft's Text-To-Speech APIs are the best on the market. Google's are definitely a distant second: not as many languages, not as many voices, and the output is nowhere near as good. After those two, there isn't really anything left worth mentioning.
    - causi 5y ago
      Microsoft's Text-To-Speech APIs are the best on the market. Wow, I had no idea they were that good. Is there a way to get at them from a consumer level? For example, there are plenty of e-reader apps that use Google's TTS to read epub books as audiobooks. Anything similar for Microsoft or is it all on the developer side?

kh_hk 5y ago

I say the following not knowing anything about appget internals. I hope I could find proper words to express the sour feelings when there's not enough credit given. It's always easy to dismiss something as: "gee, thats the obvious way to do it, there's nothing unique about it". Novel ideas always turn out to be obvious once they are implemented. The foundations of knowledge are based on the same principle. Standing on the shoulders of giants. The contrary, not giving credit, is just the nasty opposite. Appearing taller, by standing on your shoulders.

svnpenn 5y ago
Exactly. Some "simple solution" might just be the end result of months or years of different iterations. Sometimes you can't know the best method until you've slowly and methodically tried all the worse ones.

alias_neo 5y ago

I've read this several times before, and every time I do it hurts just as much. Every time I read of another person who built something useful, so much so that it gets recognised by big-corp X, and being called in by Google or Microsoft, promised the recognition (and pay) they deserve, then having the rug pulled at light-speed from under them, I take it personally. I'm amazed, every time I read "The Day AppGet Died" at the restraint shown, which makes it hurt that little bit more. Keivan should probably be a (multi) millionaire now, sitting comfortably with his family doing whatever it is they enjoy doing. Instead, someone at Microsoft used this as a way to get themselves a promotion. Don't be fooled by the lipstick, Microsoft has never stopped being EEEvil.

fraktl 5y ago
luciusdomitius 5y ago
Well. Cold reality is that even 5-year old kids know what sort of company MSFT is and what sort of people work for them. He acted like an useful fool, got treated like one. I even smirked a bit at his misery, even though I am normally not that kind of person. Had he instead reacted to the phone call with some extremely aggressive licensing, maybe even a software patent, now he would be discussing the terms of the out of court settlement and choosing a color for individual seats in his new 7-series.
- Shared404 5y ago
  > Cold reality is that even 5-year old kids know what sort of company MSFT is and what sort of people work for them. Mate, 80% of college students don't know that. Source: Work at a computer repair shop and see shocked faces.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    Then again most five-year-olds seem smarter than most college students.

transfire 5y ago

What open source license did AppGet use? Seemed to me we need some carefully worded clause that help provide some compensation if something like this happens. But M$ should be ashamed of themselves for not at least offering some compensation.

pedro2 5y ago
AFAIK they copied no code. Just everything else.
magpi3 5y ago
Apache. And winget-cli is licensed under the MIT license. So although the licenses are incompatible, the end result would have been the same even if Microsoft had simply forked winget with the Apache license, although in that case they would have had to credit the original author, and the lack of credit is the original author's main issue with how this was handled.
notriddle 5y ago
It didn’t matter what license he used, because Microsoft reimplemented it from scratch anyway.

allisdust 5y ago

Wow that's quite a disgusting thing to do. It's surprising how measured his take was. It's a loss for them not him as I don't think he would have fit in such backbiting culture. The whole episode is a warning for anyone developing open source stuff and is talking to MS or any big company.

orangepurple 5y ago

Now I understand what Tuco meant when he said "Sometimes you gotta rob to keep your riches."

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

Here's an oldie, but goodie: http://www.theparticle.com/fun/fun.php?topic=microsoft&id=1809 http://www.theparticle.com/fun/fun.php?topic=microsoft&id=18...

morelish 5y ago

Good read. I’ve used chocolatey a lot plus a lot of other Microsoft installation tools. Windows has been crying out for a decent package manager for years. It’s amazing how little of a sh*t Microsoft seemed to give about stuff that open-source systems provide as a first class citizen. As they care next-to-zero about decent tooling, it’s no surprise they care even less about independent developers like Keivan. I’m pretty sure Windows is going to turn into a Linux kernel with a Windows API translation layer and specialised UI system for ordinary Joes. I think it’s probably a lot more efficient that way and Microsoft has already lost the kernel battle to Linux. With the shift to the cloud, I assume Azure will become Microsoft’s dominant revenue stream, with Office second and Windows third. At least that my guess.

chem83 5y ago
There's very little incentive to adopt Linux as a kernel given how popular Microsoft is with consumer grade OEMs developing for the WHQL driver program. That's one point of competitive advantage Microsoft would be nuts to let go off. Also, sysinternals and psh alone are very compelling examples of sophisticated tooling for the Windows ecosystem. So much so that they were ported to other platforms for the Windows users wanting to explore Mac and Linux. And while Microsoft failed so far to create a decent package management solution for Windows, the problem really isn't how to manage packages, but rather how Win32 software assumes certain levels of access to system internals. This problem was mostly solved with the introduction of MSIX, so Microsoft needs to find a better carrot to incentivize developers to deploy with MSIX so winget can work properly.

WesolyKubeczek 5y ago

I dunno, getting inspired and copying all the ideas, deciding that they can do a good enough job internally instead of hiring Keivan doesn’t sound like a bad thing in and of itself. It’s the stringing along that makes my blood boil. After reading things like this, I’m thinking, what I’d do differently? Maybe have them reimburse all my travel upfront. No money, no meetings. Also, bill all the meetings and conversations. Up front, given their reputation from this story. They want to spend my time, better show how serious they are. No money, no meetings, no false hopes. But they know young geeks can be excited that someone at THE Microsoft noticed them, like in the Hollywood success stories, and walk an extra mile. Who knows, I could have lost my shit 20 years ago. This straight up exploitation irks me to no end. Reminds me of rock stars bedding teenage fangirls and similar shit, maybe this is why.

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john_moscow 5y ago
>I dunno, getting inspired and copying all the ideas, deciding that they can do a good enough job internally instead of hiring Keivan doesn’t sound like a bad thing in and of itself. It just completely kills the motivation to make any kind of system tools like this. If your tool fails, you have wasted your time. If it succeeds, the OS vendor will kill it overnight with a free knock-off, so you have also wasted your time. OS/platform vendors should know it better if they want to maintain a thriving ecosystem of contributors, but nobody seems to care anymore. Shops knocking off most successful products with store brands, Apple doing the same with some popular apps, Amazon Basics, this. And then we wonder why so many people are depressed and don't see a future for themselves anymore.
- piyh 5y ago
  You could release your code with a less permissive license (say excluding companies with a 1 trillion dollar market cap) so they at least have to play ball with you.
  - 5y ago

fnord77 5y ago

was there some way to have prevented or mitigated this?

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marginalia_nu 5y ago
Don't know about the cloning of his product, but in terms of negotiation: Don't let yourself get strung along just because someone waves something you want in front of your face. It's absolutely vital in any negotiation that you set boundaries and that you are are willing to walk away if those boundaries aren't respected. Especially if you really want what they are offering. In all, it seems the ball spent a lot of the time in their court, and not a lot in his. Either they want the guy or they don't, he shouldn't have to spend months jumping through hoops for the position if they are legitimately interested in his work. It kinda reads like a Nigeria scam: Just give us one more month and you'll get the money, I swear. It's tied up with customs right now, so if you could just do this one thing... Whatever bureaucracy they have to deal with is entirely their problem, not his. This tedious non-committal nonsense is not something you should tolerate from anyone. Sure if it's a 2 person startup things may not be smooth, but this is Microsoft we're talking about. They should have their shit together more than that. Within the general context of someone offering you a position based on your work, they have the privilege of talking to you and should be expected to treat you at least like a peer and not like some random job applicant desperate to get hired. I don't mean to suggest you should be a diva about it, but that you should respect yourself and be willing to say no to anyone who doesn't.

derkoe 5y ago

Please don't use any of these. Use scoop - it just works https://github.com/ScoopInstaller/scoop https://github.com/ScoopInstaller/scoop No admin needed for almost all packages, "scoop update *" to update your system, authoring packages is very easy.

chem83 5y ago
I like an I use scoop alongside winget after many years of Chocolatey, but there are many packages not available through scoop, mostly because there isn't a viable portable way to install them. Also, scoop does nothing to take advantage of the MSIX Containers that sandbox apps, so that they can be cleanly update and later removed. I'm considering automating the conversion of my most used apps to MSIX, so they can get always installed in a clean way. That may break certain apps like Steam, which need to install outside the virtual FS, but I hear MSIX supports global registry an global FS access exceptions nowadays, so not all hope is lost.
- Jenk 5y ago
  All scoop does is extract installers/archives from the applications own portable distributions, and then create shims for them. Scoop packages aren't actually packages. They are just manifests that point to a URL to the apps download, and a list of executables to make shims/shortcuts for and that is it. There's the nonportable bucket for apps that have er.. nonportable versions.
JoBrad 5y ago
For anyone new to scoop, it is seriously The way that package management should work, in Windows. Apps install as the user (so no admin needed), and scoop uses a “current” symlink to point to the current version of the apps you have installed. Switching between versions or even hard-linking to a specific version is trivial. I was a little disappointed to see that some folks are ditching it for winget. While we definitely don’t need to go back to the Wild West “install things wherever you want” days, Windows needs a good package management ecosystem that works responsibly.

fartcannon 5y ago

This is why you use, at the very least, a version of the GPL. But he used Apache. So he basically did Microsofts job for them for free.

protomyth 5y ago
They didn't use his code so license is irrelevant.
Hakashiro 5y ago
Like someone else mentioned, this is not a source code issue. I think 90% of the people who got pissed back then thought Microsoft stole the code: get this, they didn't steal anything. One is C++ and the other is C# so it is literally impossible for a license to matter here. This would have been solved only with software patents. But I can very easily guess you're against software patents, aren't you? Or only when they're used by big evil corporations. I hope next time you put a little thought into things you get outraged about. Oh, and the cherry on top is you victim-shaming him. "So stupid, he used the wrong license". You claim to with the good fight but in reality you only want to win Internet battles to enlarge your own ego.
- fartcannon 5y ago
- psd1 5y ago
  That's pretty fervent. I think you're worked up about what you wish the parent had said. You should have left it at the first paragraph.

axiomdata316 5y ago

It's kind of sad but it looks like Kevin hasn't posted anything since this. I hope this experience didn't break him.

jmcgough 5y ago
from https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/2/21277863/microsoft-winget-windows-package-manager-appget-response-credit-comment https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/2/21277863/microsoft-winget-...: "We reached out to Beigi to comment on the blog post and Microsoft’s overall response, but the developer says he’s still in discussions with Microsoft over the issue." That seems like it happened unrelated to giving him additional credit. I wonder if they offered him something to sign a non-disparagement agreement.

pengwing 5y ago

As founder and main developer of a product, I feel that both the first suggestion of an aqui-hire and the second suggestion of getting a regular job at MSFT are completely ludicrous. Far too weak. Framing this as becoming an employee at MSFT directly establishes a position of inferiority. This should have been about a licensing deal with the option to purchase some premium support on top to facilitate the integration. A B2B deal will never involve HR. You don't have to be a tough negotiator yourself, but then please seek advice from a manager representing you.

stjohnswarts 5y ago
Yeah unless you are a Kernighan or Torvalds or Vanrossum aqui-hire doesn't seem like a real thing because middle management can never stand to have someone who isn't 100% under their power.

joshu 5y ago

I had a similar story with Yahoo but rejected the job offer. A few years later they had to buy the company anyway.

stjohnswarts 5y ago
Yeah this is a learning lesson no doubt. Management of a company can never put up with a person who isn't 100% under their control. Only the top 0.001% of developers will get away with that. Better to realize they want what you have and you have to figure out some way to get a handle on that or realize like this poor guy in a year some internal team has copied what you did and they have 100x the resources that you have.

andix 5y ago

I don’t get why he was so upset about it. Microsoft didn’t want to accept his offer. But still WinGet is not as good as AppGet. So if he just had kept going his way with AppGet, maybe WinGet would have never gotten any traction. Like a lot of projects, Microsoft more or less abandoned WinGet right away. You still can’t do „winget update“ and update all your installed packages. For me one of the main features of a package manager.

chem83 5y ago
Won't 'winget upgrade --all' do the trick for you?
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LeonB 5y ago

This caused a big splash at the time. Here’s some links on ‘what happened next’ (though I’d love to know what else has happened since!) - “Microsoft finally gives AppGet developer the credit he deserves” (https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2020/6/2/21277863/microsoft-winget-windows-package-manager-appget-response-credit-comment https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2020/6/2/21277863/micr...) Microsoft response: - “winget install learning” by “Andrew” at Microsoft (https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/winget-install-learning/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/winget-install-le...)

gdcbe 5y ago
I find it a bit shallow that they throw around these words so easily. The apologies would have a bit more worth IMHO if they actually would compensate him financially for the foundational work. Sure it’s not a legal requirement but I do believe it is the right thing to do and it’s not like they would feel it…
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  There wasn't anything foundational. The author himself said he wanted to replicate the package managers available on Linux.

jka 5y ago

Note that Microsoft currently sponsors the author of AppGet on GitHub. (that began some time between 2021-04-16 and 2021-05-19 according to archive.org) [1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20210416144938/https://github.com/kayone https://web.archive.org/web/20210416144938/https://github.co... [2] - https://web.archive.org/web/20210519125607/https://github.com/kayone https://web.archive.org/web/20210519125607/https://github.co...

dustinmoris 5y ago
Prince Andrew has also just paid his victims cough a person he has never met.
- jka 5y ago
  There's a potential interpretation of Microsoft's sponsorship as "a financial gesture to minimize a problem", sure. Without knowing more about the story, though (and there's no requirement for the author or Microsoft to share more details), perhaps we won't really know.

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908B64B197 5y ago

This story gets reposted on HN quite often, and makes it to the front page. Several things don't add up in it. The author claims that code was copied but I looked at both repos and they share no code at all. [0] [1] In his article, the author claims that " If I were the patenting type, this would be the thing you would patent. ps. I don't regret not patenting anything." That's really not how patents work, and looking at the repo, a second year CS student could do the same really. I don't see anything that could remotely be patented. It reads where to find the installer from a config file and determine what to do based on an enum. He himself goes on to say he tried replicating the user experience from several existing package managers available on Linux. And Microsoft did create Nuget 12 years prior to AppGet. I’ll give some leeway to the author since I don’t think the author ever filed for a patent so he might not be familiar with the concept of prior art. Throughout the article the author uses the term acqui-hire but it seems Microsoft was simply considering him for a PM position (and he failed the interview). There's nothing to acquire since there's no patent, no IP and no brand. Only a registered domain and what seems like an anemic userbase, if any. I’ve done acqui-hires in the past and that’s not what the author describes. First you never deal with HR, there’s no regular interview (especially not at a hiring event and with other candidate present) and there’s always a contract. I get that the author isn’t really in a tier one market so he might not be familiar with how it’s done (or maybe customs are different where he’s from?) but what should have tipped him is that he never spoke to anyone from legal about licenses, only to an engineer who then referred him to HR… However, the author is quite clever. Being featured in The Verge[0] and on HN's front page will probably bring a lot more eyeballs to the startups he's trying to promote. So congratulation to him for the free advertising! [0] https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli [1] https://github.com/appget/appget https://github.com/appget/appget [2] https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/28/21272964/microsoft-winget-windows-package-manager-appget-copied https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/28/21272964/microsoft-winget...

jmcgough 5y ago
He never claims that his code was copied - just that they used the same approach and a lot of similar patterns. Regardless of what happened, it sounds like they left him hanging without even the courtesy of a follow-up email. Going from being ghosted to having MS release their own version of your OSS project after they've asked you a lot of technical details about how it works would leave a sour taste in anyone's mouth. Most people don't get acquihired, so I don't blame him for not understanding how it works (nor is he from the states). What he's really talking about is being hired to keep working on AppGet, he's not talking about having the project itself acquired (since it's an OSS license). I doubt there was intentional malice here but they really screwed up in how they communicated with him, and that can't help encourage devs to work on the windows ecosystem.

ijidak 5y ago

I'd recommend retaining a lawyer as soon as a large company like Microsoft reaches out to you. (Even if it's just for your private education of risks, rights and strategy.) Alternatively, start billing for time and travel immediately. If they don't want to pay, tell them to meet you locally. (Let them incur travel expenses.) This will force the company to demonstrate their intent. If they balk at both requests, this shows that: 1. They don't have managerial approval for their escapade. Or... 2. They intend to take advantage of you to the extent that they can. Either way, it shows they need to get their ducks in a row. And prepare themselves to treat your time as valuable.

KnobbleMcKnees 5y ago

I remember reading this when it was first posted and sensing that there was some disconnect between the author and Microsoft. The reframing of the hiring as not part of a wider career at Microsoft seems exactly as it sounds - "ok, you don't have to do the stuff we've suggested ... But we still want AppGet". And then this: > We talked about some of our options, but in general, I thought everything went well. It's quite clear that it didn't go that well, isn't it? I'm not defending Microsoft here or suggesting that this was the exact outcome the author was seeking, but I sense a bit of naivety in interpreting what Microsoft were driving towards. Ultimately they clearly decided the effort of a grounds up redesign / rewrite was more valuable than bring him along for the ride.