The developer was obviously brain-picked for any implementation ideas, as stated at scale. They should have been paying a retainer, or had an offer inside of two weeks.
Let this be a warning for other developers.
After Microsoft flirted with acquiring Intuit, then shortly thereafter released Money to compete directly with Quicken, I assume all due diligence is just a way to hoover up intel.
To inform a buy vs build decision. To better validate market assumptions. To identify key contributors and poach them.
Whatever.
No earnest money? Fine. They clearly were going to drain my blood and powder my bones. Their prerogative. But they can proceed to kill me and my product without my help.
Some open source guy wants to pick your brain: Sure lets get lunch and split it.
Some small single digit founder start-up wants to talk abut your work: Ok sure, pay for my lunch lets talk about how I can help you change the world.
Freaking Microsoft wants to talk: That'll be 1k an hour plus expenses (also get a limo and a nice dinner).
The humility of engineering should stop at the boundary between people who want to change the world and those who just want to profit off of you.
Paintings are just paint on a canvas, and all code is just clicks on a keyboard. That doesn’t make it any less immoral to blatantly copy without recognition.
It’s perfectly fine to carry out a fork, the irony here is that Microsoft likely tried you play this angle of “we’re just competing, not copying you” because they thought carrying out a fork with attribution would blow up in their face, which this now has.
Ever heard of NuGet[0]? Been around since 2010.
WinGet isn't a fork of AppGet, the codebases share nothing.