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.

“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’s 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.

Tagged with Windows Package Manager, winget