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The Day AppGet Died

keivan.io

111–120 of 566 posts

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#111
post #80

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. ------ 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 projec…

Sounded like they wanted to hire you for their package manager and you chose not to pursue. You have every right to be mad I suppose but as you say in the article, and in that comment, you're definitely aware of what happens to open source projects. On the other hand I'm mainly glad their adaptation was open source. I think they have to maintain their own version in order to ensure that they don't wind up with some r…

From the article, it sounds like he did pursue. After some interviews Microsoft dropped contact.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#112
post #91

There are parts of Microsoft that understand open source. Most parts of the Windows team ain’t that (exceptions apply). Reading this saddens me a lot as he clearly got screwed. But this is why any project with momentum should consider growing its community and maybe forming a foundation. For example, Homebrew and its community/infrastructure is better than and bigger than anything Apple could ever do (and we know how…

Not everyone is able or willing to develop large-scale open-source community/project.. Also, mono is a much large and more significant project that runs on Linux, not a Windows app.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#114
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you go into more detail about which features you believe were copied?

From the article: > Do you want to know how Microsoft WinGet works? go read the article I wrote 2 years ago about how AppGet works.

This is very unhelpful - I'm not really in a position to code review Microsoft's implementation and compare it to this document. I was hoping for something more like some high level details from the author of AppGet.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#115

I have a sneaking suspicion that part of the reason for the sudden radio-silence after his on-campus interview is that someone up the chain realized he is also the creator of Sonarr and just nobody wanted to take ownership of that potential liability.

In the post, he says the deal was going to be getting hired and getting a bonus as compensation in exchange for him bringing AppGet's code into Microsoft and leading the project. That's a very simple deal in which no ownership of other projects is being transferred. I'm not a lawyer but I'm pretty sure that hiring someone doesn't mean that you grandfather their liabilities. If that were the case the world would be ch…

Large corporations often have more to fear from the liability of bad PR than they do from lawsuits. Most CEOs hate bad PR more than paying out a billion dollar fine — the billion dollar fine isn’t their money, and doesn’t cost them any status at the country club.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#116
post #80

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. ------ 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 projec…

At this point, why not keep it going? Your story is good enough reason to keep working and build a community and/or foundation around AppGet.

Can't think of a more wasted effort then trying to compete with maintaining a package manager in your spare time than a clone from the OS vendor who can out resource, outspend, out market, out evangelize, out reach you, etc.

It would a futile endeavour, a realization acknowledged by the author, any further dev cycles on it would be wasted & are better spent elsewhere.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#118
post #15
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder if the arrangements and outcome would have been different had AppGet been closed source. All of the Windows apps that MS did this to back in the 1990s were closed source. Didn't help. MS has more than enough horsepower to just reverse engineer whatever they can't get the source code for if they care enough about the features.

I don't think so. There have been quite a few larger products, where Microsoft failed spectacularly.

> There have been quite a few larger products, where Microsoft failed spectacularly.

Sure, but not because of failure to reverse engineer someone else's product.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Of course with all/most US routers generally taking only signed ROMs, it's mostly useless to even have the code. I wish they'd just create something closer to tomato than the flashy, less useful interfaces.

That problem is called TiVoization. It’s addressed with the 3rd version of the GPL. Sadly, Linus is adamantly against that clause.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#120

This is why it's important to license FOSS projects under the (A)GPL, rather than the MIT license. It makes it far less profitable for companies to steal your ideas/code, and ensures that anything based on your work will put users first.

(A)GPL doesn't protect ideas. Patents do that.
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