zlacker

>>lostms+(OP)
Keivan obviously got screwed.

Having worked at Microsoft, and seeing the nature of the bureaucracy, the only advice I would give for next time is...

Just realize you can't set terms with a large company like MSFT unless you get lawyers involved early.

Stealing from you outright is simply too tempting, given their resources.

I noticed there were some conditions Keivan tried to set regarding the future evolution of the technology before joining MSFT.

In a large company like MSFT, there were bound to be large internal email threads relaying a play-by-play of negotiations with Keivan to: inside legal counsel, developers who already gave t-shirt sizes for building the tech in-house, product managers, and dozens of others.

No matter what they tell you, they're internally weighing

- Should we just rip him off? - Should we hire him? Would that be better or worse for liability? - How IP protected is this? How much can we "borrow"? - Is it worth the hassle of dealing with an aqui-hire we can't control? Would that expose us to even more IP risk, or less?

Once companies reach this size, they simply can't be trusted to handle a negotiation transparently and in good faith, unless you have well paid lawyers fighting for you, or well established IP protection.

I guess what I'm saying is...

When dealing with any large tech company with near infinite resources -- like MSFT, GOOG, etc --, find a legally defensible upper hand, and assume they are weighing the cost-benefit of screwing you.

(Sadly, this is exactly why lawyers make so much money.)

>>ijidak+KA
I am interested (and kind of depressed) to think - is there actually a legally defensible upper hand that exists here?

>>akdor1+VH
If WinGet contains AppGet code and they didn't credit him then yes, absolutely, moral rights in copyright (attribution, right of association, integrity) cannot be transferred during the lifetime of the owner and yes MSFT can be sued for breaching them. It is extremely likely the penalties meted out by a judge wouldn't cover the costs of a lawyer. Not that anything like this would ever see a courtroom, MS will offer a settlement which in this case will be on the magnitude they gave to Mike Rowe for MikeRoweSoft.com (which was an xbox and some travel vouchers and such).

If they stole his unpatented ideas then there's nothing.

>>chx+7M
In this case the author claims he could have obtained a patent and that code was copied.

Both of these claims are pretty easy to dismiss by simply looking at the respective repositories. They share nothing.

>>908B64+gF2
> In this case the author claims he could have obtained a patent and that code was copied.

No. From the source:

> the core mechanics, terminology, the manifest format and structure, even the package repository’s folder structure, are very inspired by AppGet.

In the update it's slightly more vague, but there's no claim of coffee being copied there either:

> 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.

And continues to be more explicit about his complaint:

> What was copied with no credit is the foundation of the project.

Lastly, looking at the repo really doesn't tell you if you could get a patent on it.

>>efreak+oF3
In the update and the responses/interviews the author gave he clearly states that Microsoft copied his source, an absurd claim considering both repos are public.

He goes to say that "If I were the patenting type, this would be the thing you would patent. ps. I don't regret not patenting anything."

I mean come on. Every package has a .yaml manifest where there's a download link for every architecture, a hash, a version and an installation recipe. There's nothing to patent here. It would be extremely hard to argue there's no prior art, considering most languages and distributions have been shipping with package managers built just like these for years. Even my text editor has one!

Realistically, the author managed to get a lot of attention for his other startup for almost no cost. By bashing the company that's trendy to bash right now.