A developer says Microsoft led him on about a job and buying his tool before going silent and releasing its own very similar service. Now he wants an explanation and credit for his work. (MSFT)

May 28, 2020

A developer says Microsoft led him on about a job and buying his tool before going silent and releasing its own very similar service. Now he wants an explanation and credit for his work. (MSFT)

Keivan Beigi

A developer said Microsoft wanted to acquire his package manager AppGet in some form, but then stopped communicating with him and eventually released a very similar tool called WinGet.
He told Business Insider that he just wants Microsoft to give him an explanation and credit for his work.
Microsoft said it is investigating the situation. "We regret to hear about this candidate's experience and are reviewing the circumstances internally," a spokesperson said.
Do you work at Microsoft? Contact this reporter via encrypted messaging app Signal (+1-425-344-8242) or email (astewart@businessinsider.com).
Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A developer who created a software tool that caught Microsoft's attention says that the company led him on for months about a job and then built a very similar service.

Keivan Beigi, the developer of package manager AppGet, says that Microsoft reached out to him in July 2019, and subsequently expressed interested in hiring him and acquiring his tool before cutting off communication for months and releasing it own package manager in May.

Now, Beigi said he wants Microsoft to give him an explanation — and credit for his work.

"I don't even know if I'm in a position to ask for anything," Beigi told Business Insider. "The power dynamic is off."

A package manager automates the process of installing, updating, or removing software programs, and Beigi built AppGet while working full-time as the head of IT for a cryptocurrency trading company. Microsoft unveiled its own similarly named package manager — "WinGet" or Windows Package Manager — during its Build developer conference last week for Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system.

Beigi believes that WinGet is "very inspired" by his own package manager, which he says Microsoft originally wanted to acquire by hiring him. In a Medium post published Sunday and spotted this week by various tech-industry media, Beigi wrote that Microsoft approached him last summer, expressing interest in AppGet as "a great addition to the Windows ecosystem."

Beigi met with who he describes as a "high-level manager at Microsoft" and eventually the conversations evolved into discussing plans for some combination of acquiring AppGet and hiring Beigi. Business Insider reviewed email exchanges between Beigi and Microsoft, which describe details of his potential employment, including discussions about his role and compensation.

Beigi said he flew to Microsoft's Redmond, Washington, headquarters on Dec. 5, but didn't hear from Microsoft again for six months — except for an exchange with human resources about an issue with a travel reimbursement — until very recently when the same high-level manager told him that Microsoft would be releasing WinGet. In that email, the manager wrote, "I'm sorry that the pm position didn't work out." (PM in this case stands for the "package manger" engineering position.)

After Beigi published his Medium post, he said the Microsoft hiring manager contacted him and said it was not the company's intention to surprise Beigi with the release of WinGet, but didn't explain why communication fell apart. However, Beigi said he still wants an explanation of how the situation went down like it did.

Beigi said there's nothing to suggest Microsoft "copied" AppGet, which was open-source anyway and written in a different programming language than WinGet. But, he says, Microsoft did take the foundation of how the project works and he would appreciate some credit or acknowledgement.

Microsoft said it is investigating the situation. "We regret to hear about this candidate's experience," a spokesperson said, "And are reviewing the circumstances internally."

Beigi has now decided to stop developing AppGet because it feels like it's a "waste of effort" now that Microsoft has its own package manager in the Windows ecosystem. AppGet will shut down permanently on Aug. 1.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: What makes 'Parasite' so shocking is the twist that happens in a 10-minute sequence