Not disagreeing with you, but I think it's better to make it a little bit more clear what exactly was copied. Reading the article mentioned in the OP, the main selling point for appget seems to be that the packages are written in yaml:
But that alone doesn't particularly strike me as a completely novel approach on its own. Looking at package definitions for firefox across various package managers, you can notice that they all look somewhat similar to some degree. Though one could argue that appget and winget looks more similar than others, I'm not sure this is wholesale copying without digging into more details. But again, I'm not trying to argue that it's not, and I also agree the OP should've received more credit.
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.
What new cuddly Microsoft? When did they grow fur? Did people honesty believe that some messaging and branding choices would outweigh the influence of institutional inertia, for such a large company?
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.
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.
And lets not forget - they had similar open source project and community. They decided not to participate but create their own. This new project will overshadow existing and eventually kill community.
MS not having the basic decency of reimbursing his travel expenses is also shocking, as well as incredibly petty. What a broken way of dealing with someone who dealt with MS in good faith and brought value to their ecosystem.
The article says there was an issue with reimbursement. It doesn't say that the issue wasn't resolved or that it was MS's fault, both are just your conjecture.
The PR value to Microsoft of making him whole, and of reinforcing the impression of a newly ethical and positive force in the community, would have positively dwarfed the fraction of a rounding error it would have cost to do so. This was such a no-brainer that it's malpractice on somebody's part to have let it come to this. It doesn't matter that they're within their rights under the Apache license. Banal, tone-deaf, emergent corporate amorality shouldn't be the touchstone of the new Microsoft.
> Do you want to know how Microsoft WinGet works? go read the article (https://keivan.io/appget-what-chocolatey-wasnt/)
But that alone doesn't particularly strike me as a completely novel approach on its own. Looking at package definitions for firefox across various package managers, you can notice that they all look somewhat similar to some degree. Though one could argue that appget and winget looks more similar than others, I'm not sure this is wholesale copying without digging into more details. But again, I'm not trying to argue that it's not, and I also agree the OP should've received more credit.
appget: https://github.com/appget/appget.packages/blob/master/manife...
winget: https://github.com/microsoft/winget-pkgs/blob/master/manifes...
scoop: https://github.com/lukesampson/scoop-extras/blob/master/buck...
homebrew cask: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/blob/master/Casks/...
That being said, the fake interview process explained in the article is totally unacceptable and deserves some explanations from MS.