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The Day AppGet Died

keivan.io

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Re: The Day AppGet Died

#31

Post by leethomas »

sneak wrote: post #19

When you release free (as in freedom) software, you are not entitled to revenue sharing when people use or modify that software, or if people use the ideas in that software to make new, from-scratch software. I think Microsoft is a terrible organization and will rejoice the day they finally cease to exist as a concern, but they didn’t do anything wrong here. PHP didn’t “rip off” Perl, nor did CoffeeScript “rip off” r…

While I haven’t read the announcement from Microsoft, it seems to me that the core issues he had were in the downplaying of AppGet and overall lack of attribution, compared to other package managers with less influence:

> But the part that hurts the most was the announcement. AppGet, which is objectively where most ideas for WinGet came from, was only mentioned as another package manager that just happened to exist; While other package managers that WinGet shares very little with were mentioned and explained much more deliberately.

He also mentions that he would’ve appreciated better communication. It doesn’t seem to have been about being “entitled to revenue sharing”. He divorced himself from that completely:

> Am I upset they didn’t hire me? Not really, after visiting the campus, I wasn’t too sure I wanted to work for such a big company, also moving from Canada to the U.S. wasn’t something I was too excited about.

And

> I didn’t create AppGet to get rich or to become famous or get hired by Microsoft.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#32

Post by pvg »

sneak wrote: post #19

When you release free (as in freedom) software, you are not entitled to revenue sharing when people use or modify that software, or if people use the ideas in that software to make new, from-scratch software. I think Microsoft is a terrible organization and will rejoice the day they finally cease to exist as a concern, but they didn’t do anything wrong here. PHP didn’t “rip off” Perl, nor did CoffeeScript “rip off” r…

He needs to stop seeing ideas and concepts as “his” that are property that can be stolen.

Where do you see that in the post? His pretty reasonable expectations are a bit of common decency from the other side - following up on emails and a smidgen of credit. There's no entitlement to ideas or claims anything was stolen.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#35

Post by colejohnson66 »

na85 wrote: post #20
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know the details of your project, but what if you open sourced under the GPL? I feels as though the world has soured on the GPL in recent years, but whenever I see this type of sentiment—that open sourcing work is just a gift from small developers to big tech companies, or something thereabouts—I think, wouldn't the GPL solve that problem? Sure, big companies can still use GPL'd code, but they're forced to gi…

By Eben Moglen's own admission[0], the GPL has never been successfully enforced in a court of law, even against criminal infringers. It seems toothless to me. A relic from a byegone era when companies cared about ethical behavior. [0] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html

The GPL has been used successfully in courts of law. It’s not common as most violators just open source when called out, or settle when sued, but it has worked before. A famous example is D-Link using the Linux kernel in their routers. After a lawsuit in Germany, D-Link had to release their changes.[0]

I don’t understand this idea that a license that the author willingly released his code under is unenforceable, but EULAs are?

[0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20141007073104/http://gpl-violat...

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#36

Post by 1f60c »

WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #33

1. Release some code under a permissive license 2. Start complaining when companies exercise precisely the rights you have given them

You’re putting words in the author’s mouth, because that doesn’t seem like the problem.

The problem was “the slow and dreadful communication speed” and “the total radio silence at the end”, and:

> [T]he […] announcement. AppGet, which is objectively where most ideas for WinGet came from, was only mentioned as another package manager that just happened to exist; While other package managers that WinGet shares very little with were mentioned and explained much more deliberately.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#37

Post by colejohnson66 »

lostmsu wrote: post #13
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know the details of your project, but what if you open sourced under the GPL? I feels as though the world has soured on the GPL in recent years, but whenever I see this type of sentiment—that open sourcing work is just a gift from small developers to big tech companies, or something thereabouts—I think, wouldn't the GPL solve that problem? Sure, big companies can still use GPL'd code, but they're forced to gi…

That would not have helped MongoDB. I considered their new license, but it seemed tailored to their specifics. So maybe more research is required. Perhaps a variant of CC-BY NC would be better, but it is not tailored to code.

What’s wrong with AGPL?

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#38

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

pavlov wrote: post #12

The story reminds me of Andy Hertzfeld’s Switcher: https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor... The difference is that, in 1984, Bill Gates immediately offered $40k and Steve Jobs offered $100k for plugging a hole in their operating system. In 2020, Microsoft just strings you along on vague promises while they simultaneously rip you off.

I love how those stories of the early years are so different from what I think of looking at companies today -

> Jeff picked me up at the airport, and we drove to Microsoft's main building where we were joined by Neil Konzen, a talented 23 year old who was Microsoft's main systems programmer on the Macintosh. I knew Neil from his days as an early Apple II hobbyist, when we collaborated on adding features to an assembly language development system when he was only 16.

Just... "Microsoft's main systems programmer on the Macintosh" is such a weird sentence to read today. On the other hand, Microsoft also shipped Xenix, a full-on licensed Unix™ OS before they shipped DOS.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#39

Post by colejohnson66 »

solarkraft wrote: post #17
lostmsu wrote: post #2

That is exactly why I am not open sourcing my .NET bindings for TensorFlow.

How much will that really change the likelihood of MS reimplementing it? They didn't take any of the AppGet code, just the ideas.

Depending on who you ask, ideas are still protected by intellectual property laws. Patents are a good example.
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