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The Day AppGet Died

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Re: The Day AppGet Died

#431

Post by mumblemumble »

wpietri wrote: post #346
kayone wrote: 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…

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…

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.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#432

Post by rectang »

x32n23nr wrote: post #413

Is there an open-source license that prohibits the use of software if your company's yearly revenue is higher than ?

There is not, because that would not be compatible with one of the non-discrimination clauses of the Open Source Definition.

https://opensource.org/osd

> 5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#433

Post by generalk »

michaelt wrote: post #350
dmix wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling it "WinGet" was the real punch in the gut. Does Microsoft select for assholes or something? There's a thousand other package manager names [1] in the wild and they chose that one. So much for "developers, developers, developers"... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_software_package_manag...

> Calling it "WinGet" was the real punch in the gut. I feel for the guy, but someone who called their package manager "app get" in 2014 when "apt get" has existed for since 1998 is in no position to take umbrage at a competing package manager having a six-letter name ending in get.

I think there's a huge and obvious difference between an open-source dev naming a package manager for a non-Linux platform "AppGet" in reference/homage/whatever to apt-get; and Microsoft, a multi-billion dollar company, dangling a carrot in front of the developer of a program called AppGet then ghosting him, forking his open-source project and calling it WinGet, and not even having the decency to publicly credit his work.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#434

Post by joncrane »

dmix wrote: post #264
kayone wrote: 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…

Calling it "WinGet" was the real punch in the gut. Does Microsoft select for assholes or something? There's a thousand other package manager names [1] in the wild and they chose that one. So much for "developers, developers, developers"... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_software_package_manag...

>Does Microsoft select for assholes or something?

Probably, but it's not limited to Microsoft.

Any company where revenues are the highest goal (and all publicly traded companies should be this way; it's an obligation to share holders) will, generally speaking, select for assholes and sociopaths.

How strong that selection is, how pervasive, and how quickly it happens are variables in the equation, but the effect is the same, and it sucks.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#435

Post by hanselot »

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #279
dmix wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling it "WinGet" was the real punch in the gut. Does Microsoft select for assholes or something? There's a thousand other package manager names [1] in the wild and they chose that one. So much for "developers, developers, developers"... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_software_package_manag...

In all fairness: - "NuGet" is super-popular in .NET circles (included in Visual Studio by default) - "apt-get" is the classic tool for Windows Subsystem for Linux So "WinGet" certainly "makes sense" as a name without being a direct ripoff of AppGet

This is how MS operates. EEE Windows Subsystem for Linux has Zero bearing on the existence of apt-get,aptitude,synaptic,apt,dpkg or any other package manager that ships with a mainline linux distribution.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#436

Post by [deleted] »

jlengrand wrote: post #419
whoisjuan wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most cynic part of this story is sending him an email the day before the launch with a heads-up that WinGet was launching. And the icing on the cake is the "btw, we are giving you the exclusive so keep it secret". Like, wtf. He ain't TechCrunch. Why the fuck are they giving him that exclusive? Nothing yells "we stole your stuff, but dude it was open source so you really can't complain, and thanks for the idea" mo…

I might be wrong, but I read this as an apology from a PM that tried to get something done for the guy he based work off, but ended up never managing to because BigCorp got in the way. He might have felt bad about it and clear part of his conscience, or try to soften the blow.

[deleted]

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#437

Post by yoz-y »

foolmeonce wrote: post #354
deno wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "apt-get" is the classic tool for Windows Subsystem for Linux Hello darkness, my old friend…

Yeah I hope the TLD read is that this article has nothing to do with Microsoft embracing Linux and Debian distribution related tools are safe? I would have preferred irrelevantGet but WinGet is unambiguous enough. Don't work for free on proprietary systems or single sponsor opensource is a lesson cheaper learned by watching others.

> Don't work for free on proprietary systems or single sponsor opensource is a lesson cheaper learned by watching others.

Well in the author's case the tool was just as useful for them than for the others. Nothing wrong with helping the community, regardless of the ecosystem.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#438

Post by djsumdog »

dillonmckay wrote: post #414
wpietri wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reminds me even more of Stac Electronics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics#Microsoft_law... In 1990, they put out Stacker, which did transparent disk compression, effectively giving people twice as much disk space. It was a huge hit, so Microsoft called them up about an acquisition, entered discussion, and as part of the due dilligence process, even looked at the source code. In 1993, Microsoft relea…

Oh man, having bad flashbacks with that and SuperStor. I think I had a 200MB hard drive at the time.

Same here. I think I used both Stacker and SuperStor at different times. They'd create archives and those would show up as a D:\ and C:\ was all transparently compressed and uncompressed. They were a bit disingenuous wit the "double storage." That's why you needed to make sure you had plenty of 'free' space before installing something, because the OS lied to you about the space available. That and there was a performance penalty too.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#439

Post by Kalq »

mikekchar wrote: post #237
scotty79 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some higher ups decided no, they don't need to hire you Total misjudgment on their part. Thanks to this one HN post they already lost in terms of developer good will way more than his potential salary would be. Every time anyone who uses WinGet, who read this, will think 'oh, yeah, that's the tool that Microsoft build their version of behind original author's back, while stringing him and ghosting for few months".

Realistically, though, a year from now nobody will care. I mean, I started in this industry in the "MS is outright evil" era. How many people did they screw over? If I remember correctly, there was even a guy who was owed a pile of stock/stock options and when he got cancer they suddenly went missing (no need to pay the dead guy!). Day by day, year by year, these misdeeds are seen as irrelevant. MS is a different com…

I guess it might help to reaffirm the beliefs of somebody who was teetering in their distrust of Microsoft like myself.

I've been anti-Microsoft for about 15 years but even I'll admit that I've warmed up to them over the past few years because of their seemingly good works (and amazing PR). Stuff like this helps me remember why healthy skepticism is still super important when it comes to giant companies like MS.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#440

Post by eitally »

haltingproblem wrote: post #156
fraggle222 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to go back and look it was a while back, it took longer than I remembered it. The initial reach out was in May 2011. I had some initial conversation with them in May and June, sent them some overview of the company, etc. Then didn't hear back for a while. In December 2011 conversations started back up. By then the company had actually launched a product where they could see my business being useful. I sent them…

Thanks for sharing the timeline. These things take far longer than anyone realizes.

Lots of times the process starts through some mid-level manager expressing interest in a possible m&a, and initiating what I'd call "casual" due diligence, along the lines of what the PP described. The issue here, from the target's pov, is that the person/team sponsoring the research/engagement isn't empowered to execute an acquisition -- ultimately, they're just performing research to build a business case that validates the viability of the purchase, and helps provides insights sufficient to guide the acquiring company's deal team on desirable base contract terms & structures. All this feels like it's an acquisition moving quickly to small companies that haven't been through it before, but it really isn't. Only after the corporate development analysts & attorneys get involved will it move quickly, but that's primarily for two reasons: 1) the due diligence is already largely completed, and 2) they hold the purse strings.

Note that it's pretty common for years to pass between the first and second stages of this process, and there are any number of reasons why acquisition negotiations can either suddenly accelerate (it becomes competitive, partnering isn't going to work as a fallback, the target is going out of business, the acquiring company needs to unload cash fast, ...) or slow down (partnering becomes more desirable than acquisition, 1st party development becomes competitive, various legal reasons intervene, business strategy shifts away from whatever made the acquisition interesting in the first place, org changes shift the focus away from the acquisition, ...).

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