Microsoft Ignores Allegations of Theft

Last week, Keivan Beigi explained how Microsoft stole his package manager after offering him a bogus job. Now, Microsoft has responded.

And that response is beyond inadequate.

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“We talked with Keivan last summer about potential opportunities to work together to deliver the Windows Package Manager,” Microsoft’s Andrew Clinick—yes, that Andrew—explains in a post about the “learning” he and his employer have experienced in the wake of this disaster. “During those conversations [sic] we were impressed with Keivan’s insights into the package management world on Windows and with his desire for there to be a great package management experience on Windows.”

And then goes on to not ever discuss the central complaint: That he and Microsoft offered Beigi a job overseeing Beigi’s appget as the new Windows Package Manager before ghosting him for six months and then releasing a near clone of it instead. He notes, instead, that Microsoft will be open-sourcing its WinGet service code on GitHub. As if that was the concern. As if posting something publicly makes the theft OK.

The closest Clinick gets to apologizing is in noting that maybe he didn’t give Beigi enough credit for inspiring WinGet in the original announcement. This snub was mentioned in Beigi’s original complaint but, again, it was not the major concern.

“Our goal is to provide a great product to our customers and community where everyone can contribute and receive recognition,” Clinick writes. “The last thing that we want to do is alienate anyone in the process. That is why we are building it on GitHub in the open where everyone can contribute. Over the past couple of days we’ve listened and learned from our community and clearly we did not live up to this goal. More specifically, we failed to live up to this with Keivan and AppGet. This was the last thing that we wanted.”

I’m sorry, but this is unacceptable. Clinick talks around the real problem rather than addressing it head-on and he in no way apologizes for how he and Microsoft treated Beigi.

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Conversation 37 comments

  • madthinus

    Premium Member
    01 June, 2020 - 8:43 am

    <p>If you thought the actions surrounding winget was terrible, please read this whole post, because it is a massive F YOU post by this tool! </p><p><br></p><p>I hope there is more push back from this, this is just not cool!</p>

  • roncerr

    01 June, 2020 - 8:47 am

    <p>Why "sic"? Is there something wrong with "conversations"?</p>

    • Paul Thurrott

      Premium Member
      01 June, 2020 - 8:57 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#544282">In reply to Roncerr:</a></em></blockquote><p>No comma.</p>

  • sherlockholmes

    Premium Member
    01 June, 2020 - 8:47 am

    <p>Yeah, as I said, going back to old times it looks like. </p>

    • madthinus

      Premium Member
      01 June, 2020 - 8:48 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#544283">In reply to SherlockHolmes:</a></em></blockquote><p>Probably a case of not getting the memo. </p>

      • sherlockholmes

        Premium Member
        01 June, 2020 - 8:52 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#544284">In reply to madthinus:</a></em></blockquote><p>If I would be Satya, I would fire this "Andrew" right now. </p>

    • Paul Thurrott

      Premium Member
      01 June, 2020 - 8:57 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#544283">In reply to SherlockHolmes:</a></em></blockquote><p>One person != Microsoft Corporation.</p>

      • sherlockholmes

        Premium Member
        01 June, 2020 - 8:59 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#544286">In reply to paul-thurrott:</a></em></blockquote><p>Well as I see it, when it was one person, then that person put his employer in a bad light. In Germany, that would be enough to fire someone. </p>

  • PanamaVet

    01 June, 2020 - 9:42 am

    <p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Our goal is to provide a great product to our customers and community where everyone can contribute and receive recognition,” – You left out the part about not mistreating anyone in the process.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Keivan </span>does not have the knowledge to help Microsoft provide a great product to our customers. – Microsoft contacted <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Keivan </span>and took his intellectual property. Microsoft planted the idea that he would be compensated.</p><p><br></p><p>Microsoft could not afford to hire <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Keivan </span>Beigi. – Crickets chirping. What was that goal again?</p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“The last thing that we want to do is alienate anyone in the process." – </span>Well, we know Microsoft did not want to get caught doing what they orchestrated.</p><p><br></p><p>Now they have yet another PR disaster on their hands.</p><p> </p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

    • igor engelen

      02 June, 2020 - 12:56 pm

      <p>How about this one : "<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Over the past couple of days we’ve listened and learned from our community and clearly we did not live up to this goal."</span></p><p>I'm sorry but if you really need your community for that you still belong in elementary school.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

  • donaldhall3

    01 June, 2020 - 10:02 am

    <p>There's the MSFT I remember after working there for 13 years. </p>

  • vernonlvincent

    Premium Member
    01 June, 2020 - 10:20 am

    <p>Wow – it really looks like a sanitized response. It's as bland and uninformative to the accusation as it can get. Paul is right – this response is entirely inadequate – and while the whole "we failing to live up to" part is nice, it's doesn't go nearly far enough,. </p><p><br></p><p>I read somewhere that the elements of a good apology have to include the following:</p><p>1) An acknowledgement of what the offending party did wrong.</p><p>2) Acknowledgement of the impact the "wrong" had on the injured party</p><p>3) What the offending party will do, if anything can be done, to provide a restitution (for whatever value that word has) to the injured party.</p><p>4) <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Acknowledgement </span>of what the offending party is going to do to prevent the "wrong" from occurring in the future. </p><p>5) Sincerity.</p><p><br></p><p>Microsoft acknowledge what they failed to do, but there's no real acknowledgement of what they actually did – and nothing about how it impacted Keivin, how they can (if it's possible) to provide him restitution, or what steps they will take to see this doesn't occur again.</p><p><br></p><p>I think they are sincere, but sincerity alone is not enough by far. </p>

  • lvthunder

    Premium Member
    01 June, 2020 - 10:23 am

    <p>It's not stealing if the license says you can do it. That's the whole point of open source projects. To build on one another. From what I understand the two projects are written in different languages. So it's not like there was a copy and paste here.</p><p><br></p><p>As for the process of them trying or not trying to hire this person I'm guessing the lawyers got involved and told Andrew not to say anything about that.</p>

    • vernonlvincent

      Premium Member
      01 June, 2020 - 10:37 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#544295">In reply to lvthunder:</a></em></blockquote><p>Fair enough, but Microsoft also walks an incredibly fine line in owning GitHub. Those who were most worried about the purchase of GitHub by Microsoft were afraid that MS would essentially take whatever they wanted from the contributions without any sort of credit or attribution. </p><p><br></p><p>Assuming that what Keivan has alleged is what happened – the company could have avoided all of this by reaching out to him beforehand and coming up with some kind of compensation for his efforts. Even if they didn't buy his product outright, they could have invited him to Build and let him be a part of the announcement. </p><p><br></p><p>I should also say that, at the moment, I don't see this as typical Microsoft behavior given their substantial progress over the last several years. I really hope, however, that this is not the start of a pattern, because everyone will now be watching them.</p>

    • sherlockholmes

      Premium Member
      01 June, 2020 - 10:42 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#544295">In reply to lvthunder:</a></em></blockquote><p>The problem is themoment Microsoft puts WinGet inside of Windows, they will make money out of it. They almost havent done anything on their own to get this together. The developer of AppGet will not get any money and/or credit from Microsoft. Thats stealing. </p>

      • Craig.

        01 June, 2020 - 7:47 pm

        <blockquote><a href="#544302"><em>In reply to SherlockHolmes:</em></a></blockquote><blockquote>They almost havent done anything on their own to get this together.</blockquote><p>They wrote the <em>whole</em> of the application…?</p>

        • sherlockholmes

          Premium Member
          01 June, 2020 - 10:59 pm

          <blockquote><em><a href="#544358">In reply to Craig.:</a></em></blockquote><p>More like copied it from AppGet. </p>

          • Craig.

            02 June, 2020 - 8:56 pm

            <blockquote><em><a href="#544369">In reply to SherlockHolmes:</a></em></blockquote><p>They didn't copy any code, they're not even in the same language.</p>

      • bogdan

        01 June, 2020 - 11:59 pm

        <blockquote><a href="#544302"><em>In reply to SherlockHolmes:I don't understand. How will they money buy putting WinGet inside Windows? By the same logic, putting Ubuntu under WSL they do too, I think that this actually cost them money (development, support) Microsoft makes money by selling information about U and me, and selling services to users like Office 365 or Azure. I have no problem with it. I just got a reinder about the upcoming annual renewal charge. Over a month before it happens. I have to respect that on so many levels. Unlike other sleazy outfits which wait 1 day before and and already charged your credit card one week prior. I could name at least one, but will not, since they rectified the problem, for me at least.</em></a></blockquote><p><br></p>

    • maethorechannen

      Premium Member
      01 June, 2020 - 10:46 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#544295">In reply to lvthunder:</a></em></blockquote><p>Even if they forked the guys repo it's only stealing if they violate the licence. And as it looks like it's Apache licenced they'd have to go out of thier way to violate it.</p><p><br></p><p>Seeing as package managers have been around for decades now over on Linux, is not like they're even stealing the guy's idea.</p><p><br></p><p>I get why people are upset at Microsoft for stringing the guy along when it comes to giving him a job, but this whole "stealing" thing is patent nonsense.</p>

    • jimchamplin

      Premium Member
      01 June, 2020 - 2:04 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#544295">In reply to lvthunder:</a></em></blockquote><p>Sorry. Just because something is <em>permitted</em> doesn’t mean that it’s <em>right</em>. </p><p><br></p><p>You’re not required by law to be polite or civil to anyone, but if you act out and are a jerk to everyone, you’ll find out how quickly you get put in your place. </p>

  • edtittel

    01 June, 2020 - 10:25 am

    <p>The sentence "As if that’s was the concern." should either be "As if that's what was the concern." or "As if that were the concern." HTH,</p><p>–Ed–</p>

    • Paul Thurrott

      Premium Member
      01 June, 2020 - 4:53 pm

      Thanks.

  • faustxd9

    Premium Member
    01 June, 2020 - 11:42 am

    <p>While I understand the frustration, didn't someone in the comments to the first article do a review and determine that only the structure is "similar" but it is not a direct copy other than what would be required for any package manager? Ghosting seems wrong but for a large company it is almost a <span style="color: rgb(17, 17, 17);">bureaucratic inevitability (speaking only from my personal experience and not with MS). </span></p>

    • mrbrianhinton

      02 June, 2020 - 7:55 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#544309">In reply to faustxd9:</a></em></blockquote><p>Yeah. I personally think people are blowing this out of proportion. It's not like they copied, and pasted his code. It's a completely different language, and I don't agree with it being trivial to translate concepts from one language to another. It's not that simple. They were inspired by AppGet. They wanted to hire Keivan, and apparently something kept them from hiring him. I'd wager there is a reason for that?</p>

      • Paul Thurrott

        Premium Member
        02 June, 2020 - 8:18 am

        No one is blowing this out of proportion. This is not about Microsoft stealing his code. It’s about Microsoft leading him on and then ghosting him for six months.

        Instead of just assuming that Microsoft did no wrong, let’s just look at what we know and be objective. Objectively speaking, Microsoft behaved unethically. At the very least.

  • Cdorf

    Premium Member
    01 June, 2020 - 12:06 pm

    <p>Its another shoot themselves in the foot scenario. Only this time I think they took their whole foot off. They need to hire him, give him the credit and make it right </p>

  • nwenthusiast

    01 June, 2020 - 12:08 pm

    <p>There's a disconnect somewhere in this situation.&nbsp;A Program Manager job is not a software coding job.&nbsp;If someone is hired as a coder, theeir title is Software Engineer.&nbsp;Microsoft does not usually hire a person who really knows how to write software code as a Proggram Manager.</p>

  • txag

    01 June, 2020 - 4:40 pm

    <p>Microsoft has another problem concerning <a href="https://www.diyphotography.net/photographer-sues-microsoft-for-150000-for-using-her-photos-without-permission/&quot; target="_blank">using somebody else's work</a>.</p>

  • illuminated

    01 June, 2020 - 7:01 pm

    <p>This is the soap opera out of thin air. Package managers were available on linux for decades so there is nothing new. The biggest mistake Microsoft made was the contact with winget guy. They only got only bad publicity from him. Stupid management move that could be avoided by a single engineer spending couple of days looking at the source code.</p>

    • Paul Thurrott

      Premium Member
      02 June, 2020 - 8:23 am

      It’s not a soap opera and it’s not out of thin air.

      Do we really need to be strung along by a potential employer who quietly steals your work before we understand why this is unethical and bad? Just have empathy and understanding. It’s not that hard.

      • miamimauler

        03 June, 2020 - 4:10 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#544405">In reply to paul-thurrott:</a></em></blockquote><p>Hi Paul, just a heads up.</p><p><br></p><p>MS gave credit on May 30 in the article "winget install learning" on devblogs.microsoft.com and showed remorse over the incident.</p><p>I'm not excusing MS's actions, just aknowedging they have accepted they need to do better in the future.</p>

      • grsdev

        04 June, 2020 - 1:23 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#544405">In reply to paul-thurrott:</a></em></blockquote><p>How is this unethical!? What's unethical is a guy who opens sources his code then tries to harass another who was inspired by it or even forked it for that matter. </p><p><br></p><p>Your argument is anti open source software. Are you sure you want to make this argument?</p>

        • Paul Thurrott

          Premium Member
          04 June, 2020 - 8:58 am

          My argument is about a gigantic corporation stealing from an individual after stringing him along for six months with a bogus job offer. That IS unethical. It’s not hard to understand.

  • bogdan

    01 June, 2020 - 11:53 pm

    <p>Correct me if I am wrong, but… If you create an open source project (even using reverse engineering), how is it theft? Don't opens source supporters call it "forking"? You can fork and change, and improve. As long as you provide the source code, you are kosher. And calling this a theft? It is more likely a subject for attorneys to resolve with possible defamation at stake. </p>

  • wright_is

    Premium Member
    02 June, 2020 - 1:03 am

    <p>Their reply only makes the situation more murky. Their solution uses a different technology, but does essentially the same thing. The same thing that Linux has been doing for decades, the same thing as several other "ports" of this technology to Windows, the same as Docker and Chocolatey and other tools.</p><p>That they were in talks with the guy makes it look suspect at first glance and his side of the story is pretty damning and Microsoft's "<em>reply</em>" is no reply at all, it doesn't really cover any of the issues raised.</p>

  • dave.erwin

    Premium Member
    02 June, 2020 - 3:32 pm

    <p>Regardless of what happens, whether he is at Microsoft or somewhere else Andrew Clinick has ruined his reputation. Who would ever believe anything he says?</p>

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