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The Day AppGet Died

keivan.io

311–320 of 566 posts

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#311
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

Your point is solid ('get' is a common name for packaging systems) but if you're not familiar with Linux, apt-get is from Debian.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#312
Seriously, business never was and never will be a nice place. For every company in Silicon Valley there's a story about a dickmove, both in startups and corporations. Yes, Microsoft screwed you over. Capitalise on the drama buzz and move on.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#313
post #274
post #201

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…

Hopefully they also weigh in the fact that screwing developers over is terrible publicity. Assume 100k developers see this and are slightly less inclined to trust MS in future, this bad publicity could easily cost them 1mn USD plus. A good will gesture of 100k USD at the start for consulting could have saved everyone a lot of trouble. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23332123 elsewhere in this thread for an e…

I find MS seems quite immune to terrible publicity in the recent years. "But it's not the same company as before! They are doing open-source now!" yada yada

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#314
Whelp there goes any chance I'm going to consider any M$ products to replace my Macbook as a main dev and work machine.

Looks like the only viable remaining ecosystem is a linux laptop...

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not claiming that his approach was "completely novel". He's claiming microsoft identified his way, that already existed, was the way they wanted to go, toyed with bringing him in to run it and then got overwhelmed by internal Not Invented Here / We Can Do It Better and threw him under the bus. It's literally the new cuddly microsoft Embracing, Extending and Extinguishing this guy's work.

You are a small Team in a big company. Your job is to create an App Manager. There is already a code base under a MIT license. You use it. I'm not seeing the issue.

>I'm not seeing the issue.

The issue is when they didn't just fork the codebase, they repeatedly flew the person who wrote the code out to Seattle on false pretenses, implying a job offer and additional money for their work, then picked the developer's brains until Microsoft learned all they needed from him, then just ignored all communication from him.

The issue is that it was dishonest and scummy behavior.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not claiming that his approach was "completely novel". He's claiming microsoft identified his way, that already existed, was the way they wanted to go, toyed with bringing him in to run it and then got overwhelmed by internal Not Invented Here / We Can Do It Better and threw him under the bus. It's literally the new cuddly microsoft Embracing, Extending and Extinguishing this guy's work.

You are a small Team in a big company. Your job is to create an App Manager. There is already a code base under a MIT license. You use it. I'm not seeing the issue.

> You use it.

And you keep the copyright notice, otherwise you're violating the license.

If it's based on the same design (i.e. same file formats, mechanisms, etc.) then the issue is still not giving credit and pointing out the design it's based on. Doesn't cost them a thing and gives a lot of goodwill from people.

Like, if someone uses my code, I'm happy, if they copy the idea and present it as their own that's dishonest.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not claiming that his approach was "completely novel". He's claiming microsoft identified his way, that already existed, was the way they wanted to go, toyed with bringing him in to run it and then got overwhelmed by internal Not Invented Here / We Can Do It Better and threw him under the bus. It's literally the new cuddly microsoft Embracing, Extending and Extinguishing this guy's work.

You are a small Team in a big company. Your job is to create an App Manager. There is already a code base under a MIT license. You use it. I'm not seeing the issue.

The issue is bringing the author of the MIT code to your HQ for a fake interview and make suggestions that he will work with you.

You just milk him for information and let him go without any further communication.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#318
If Microsoft is serious about supporting open source then this is the kind of story that it needs to stop happening.

It may be perfectly legal to come out with their own version of AppGet, to base it on AppGet, and give it a name that is very close to AppGet, and if the developer wasn't a fit for Microsoft then they don't have to hire him.

But behaving in this way is like biting the hand that feeds you in terms of open source they come out sounding like a*oles.

When it was clear they didn't want to do an acqui-hire one solution would be to indicate that it was possibly they were going to create their own version of the product and perhaps 'purchase' the AppGet design/concept, or pay a consultancy fee for the time the developer was being interviewed - even for a token sum.

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honestly somewhat insulting that they made him go through a full external interview loop. Wait, what? So if someone is a "name brand" celebrity, they should get to jump the queue and coast by with an "informal chat?" How is that fair? I don't care if I'm interviewing John Carmack, he's getting the same evaluation process I would give to any other senior candidate. Software Engineering's got enough problems with int…

That's absurd. What he has built literally demonstrates he has the ability that the role requires - which is entirely what the entire interview loop is trying to ascertain. If you can ascertain that a person has a skillset without that loop, it is completely unnecessary.

Perhaps the role actually required skills other than those used to build Homebrew?

Re: The Day AppGet Died

#320
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homebrew is recapitulating all of the work that previous package managers have done, while making choices like analytics and stomping on /usr/local by default that others wouldn't consider. I think there's still a place for MacPorts.

I honestly really like how HomeBrew doesn't require "sudo" for anything. Random stuff I download from internet should not require system permissions to do anything they want. That part of HB design is what sells it for me.

Things you install system-wide in a folder designated as such should not really be done so by a package manager that makes insecure choices on how it installs software and maintains permissions on that directory.
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