zlacker

>>lostms+(OP)
Author here, Because it's sure to come up here is a comment I wrote on Reddit that clarifies somethings, I haven't updated the original article since I'm not sure what the etiquette for updating a highly shared article is.

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Code being copied isn't an issue. I knew full well what it meant to release something opensource and I don't regret it one bit. What was copied with no credit is the foundation of the project. How it actually works. If I were the patenting type, this would be the thing you would patent. ps. I don't regret not patenting anything. And I don't mean the general concept of package/app managers, they have been done a hundred times. If you look at similar projects across OSes, Homebrew, Chocolaty, Scoop, ninite etc; you'll see they all do it in their own way. However, WinGet works pretty much identical to the way AppGet works. Do you want to know how Microsoft WinGet works? go read the article (https://keivan.io/appget-what-chocolatey-wasnt/) I wrote 2 years ago about how AppGet works.

I'm not even upset they copied me. To me, that's a validation of how sound my idea was. What upsets me is how no credit was given.

>>kayone+Tk
Ah yes. The new Microsoft, same as the old Microsoft.

I am really sorry this happened to you. On the scale of Microsoft, or even on the scale of what they're putting into this effort, it would have cost approximately nothing to give you an "acquisition" you would have been happy with. If the job didn't work out, they could have given you a fat consulting contract for a year or two. Or they just could have written you a check.

And it would have cost them actual nothing to just treat you with respect. Say how much they loved your work. Credit you publicly as a leader and an inspiration. Arrange a smooth transition for your users.

For what it's worth, I'm glad for you that the job didn't happen. Much better to be far away from people like this.

>>wpietr+ba1
Reducing this down to a Microsoft thing is a bit hasty. Apple has done it. IBM has done it. And, when I was working for a less well-known company, I once burned a whole lot of social capital trying to prevent it from happening.

At least in that instance, there was never anything overtly malicious happening. It was just your garden variety "banality of evil" situation. The existing corporate decision-making structures - that is, the bureaucracy - had no real mechanism to make sure that things like this are handled in an ethical manner. It's really hard to accomplish something that the bureaucracy isn't designed to handle, because that means that it's not really anybody's job to keep that particular ball rolling. So all it takes is one person not really giving a damn (perhaps only because they don't understand why they should) to scupper the whole thing.

If that experience is similar to how these things happen at Microsoft and Apple and IBM, then the problem isn't Microsoft, the problem is American workplace culture, and we have a responsibility to change how we work. Not in reaction to specific instances like this that have already happened, but in anticipation of, and in order to prevent, things like this from happening in the future.

>>mumble+rs1
Are many companies terrible? Sure. Is that an accident? No.

However, Microsoft specifically has a history of being aggressively terrible in exactly this way, which is what I was referring to. For example, the time they talked with a company about an acquisition only to ghost them and totally steal their work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics#Microsoft_law...

>>wpietr+jU1
They also have a more recent history of not behaving this way, and of winning back a lot of trust. This plainly isn't helping them now, but I do agree with the GP - this isn't a "Microsoft thing"