What does HackerNews think of winget-cli?

Windows Package Manager CLI (aka winget)

Language: C++

#1 in npm
#2 in Windows
winget does almost exactly this. It detects apps that are already installed on your machine and if it can find a match in its catalog, it can upgrade it. (Of course you can install/uninstall via the tool if you have a fresh box).

`winget upgrade —-all` from a command line (assuming your Windows is reasonably up-to-date, otherwise, https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli to get the latest release manually)

Windows now has a first-party package manager: https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli

It positively surprised me when I did `sudo winget upgrade` (I first did `winget install gerardog.gsudo` in an admin prompt) and it detected and upgraded the majority of the already installed OSS on my Windows workstation.

This story gets reposted on HN quite often, and makes it to the front page. Several things don't add up in it.

The author claims that code was copied but I looked at both repos and they share no code at all. [0] [1]

In his article, the author claims that " If I were the patenting type, this would be the thing you would patent. ps. I don't regret not patenting anything." That's really not how patents work, and looking at the repo, a second year CS student could do the same really. I don't see anything that could remotely be patented. It reads where to find the installer from a config file and determine what to do based on an enum.

He himself goes on to say he tried replicating the user experience from several existing package managers available on Linux. And Microsoft did create Nuget 12 years prior to AppGet. I’ll give some leeway to the author since I don’t think the author ever filed for a patent so he might not be familiar with the concept of prior art.

Throughout the article the author uses the term acqui-hire but it seems Microsoft was simply considering him for a PM position (and he failed the interview). There's nothing to acquire since there's no patent, no IP and no brand. Only a registered domain and what seems like an anemic userbase, if any.

I’ve done acqui-hires in the past and that’s not what the author describes. First you never deal with HR, there’s no regular interview (especially not at a hiring event and with other candidate present) and there’s always a contract. I get that the author isn’t really in a tier one market so he might not be familiar with how it’s done (or maybe customs are different where he’s from?) but what should have tipped him is that he never spoke to anyone from legal about licenses, only to an engineer who then referred him to HR…

However, the author is quite clever. Being featured in The Verge[0] and on HN's front page will probably bring a lot more eyeballs to the startups he's trying to promote. So congratulation to him for the free advertising!

[0] https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli

[1] https://github.com/appget/appget

[2] https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/28/21272964/microsoft-winget...

Note that Windows now has an official package manager called WinGet (https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli), which worked very well when I tried it a few months ago; Skype and OneDrive can now be uninstalled without an external tool; and disabling all telemetry also seems to weaken antivirus protection.
> So they took the time to get ideas out of him and do the exact same thing he did

No. Both package managers are open-source and share no code. They aren't even written in the same language. [0] [1]

It seems the author of AppGet wanted to sell it to Microsoft and Microsoft didn't see anything worth to acquire. He never even spoke to the people who could make the purchasing decision. Then they gave him a regular PM interview and it seems he failed it.

[0] https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli

[1] https://github.com/appget/appget

I'm still hoping winget[1] catches on so I can just utilize that for all the tools I typically use, but it seems like it's still a ways away from being fully ready. Still making progress, though.

[1] https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli

Apparently they’re working on an official package manager, open source even:

https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli/

It seems to me that if you compare Apple and Microsoft, it's only the latter that cares deeply about the developer experience on their platform.

https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli

>>I have developed a rekindled hatred for M$ in the past few weeks trying to install firefox on a fresh installation of windows 10.

Install a Package Manager like Chocolety [1], AppGet [2] or the new "Official" one WinGet

>>I couldnt find a simple, one-click way to change all these. I had to go over them one-by-one.. (.doc, .docx, .dochtml, .docxhtml, .xls, .xlsx, .xlshtml, .xslsxhtml,....)

Yea MS has tried to bork this, but in the "Default Apps" settings page of the new "Settings" Application, there is a link called "Set Defaults by App" that makes it MUCH easier than what you did which was "Choose Default Apps by File Type"

[1] https://chocolatey.org/

[2] https://appget.net/

[3] https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli

> There is still no central repository for useful applications. Managing and keeping all software updated takes a lot of manual work.

https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli

https://scoop.sh

https://chocolatey.org/

The official package manager of windows is winget.

https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli

I like scoop though personally.

https://scoop.sh

There technically is a “Windows package manager” https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli, though it doesn't manage installed packages yet (that seems to be planned for v1.0 sometime next year https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli/blob/master/doc/wind...).
> They directly ripped it off.

No, they used some very common and unoriginal ideas that were implemented in AppGet.

Can you point out exactly what was "ripped off" here?

- https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli

- https://github.com/appget/appget

They're not even written in the same language. And everything done in AppGet has been done before. Yawn

> Big companies will try not to pay even when they have money.

I will try not to pay, even when I have money. I think this applies to most people. Who wants to pays for something that's already free? I'm not running a fuckin charity over here.

> To not even give the minimum of non-monetary credit...

They've given it.

However, I wonder if during all of this Keivan has credited Microsoft for all of the open source tools, services and frameworks that he's used in his other work???

WinGet is open source under the MIT License, which I believe keeps them in the clear: https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli. In practice, I've never heard of any legal problems when a derivative project is also open source under a similar license. (Yes, the licenses are different. But I also believe they are considerable compatible.)
I like scoop, and this is a show stopper for me.

"This project collects usage data and sends it to Microsoft to help improve our products and services. See the privacy statement for more details." from https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli

'At Build 2020 [1] today, Microsoft unveiled Project Reunion [2], its latest attempt to unify the Windows developer platform by reducing fragmentation between Win32 APIs and Universal Windows Platform (UWP) APIs. Microsoft also promises Project Reunion can modernize existing apps with the latest functionality, whether they’re built using C++, .NET (including WPF, Windows Forms, and UWP), or React Native. Additionally, it can decouple the APIs from Windows via tools like NuGet, and it brings new WinUI 3 and WebView2 releases.'[3]

Possibly related:

Windows Package Manager Preview

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/windows-package-m...

https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli

[1] https://mybuild.microsoft.com

[2] https://github.com/microsoft/ProjectReunion

[3] https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/19/microsofts-project-reunio...

'At Build 2020 [1] today, Microsoft unveiled Project Reunion [2], its latest attempt to unify the Windows developer platform by reducing fragmentation between Win32 APIs and Universal Windows Platform (UWP) APIs. Microsoft also promises Project Reunion can modernize existing apps with the latest functionality, whether they’re built using C++, .NET (including WPF, Windows Forms, and UWP), or React Native. Additionally, it can decouple the APIs from Windows via tools like NuGet, and it brings new WinUI 3 and WebView2 releases.'[3]

Possibly related:

Windows Package Manager Preview

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/windows-package-m...

https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli

[1] https://mybuild.microsoft.com

[2] https://github.com/microsoft/ProjectReunion

[3] https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/19/microsofts-project-reunio...