Sounded like they wanted to hire you for their package manager and you chose not to pursue. You have every right to be mad I suppose but as you say in the article, and in that comment, you're definitely aware of what happens to open source projects. On the other hand I'm mainly glad their adaptation was open source. I think they have to maintain their own version in order to ensure that they don't wind up with some rogue applications on their package manager.
Which I don't find all that weird. Quoting OP here; "after visiting the campus, I wasn’t too sure I wanted to work for such a big company, also moving from Canada to the U.S. wasn’t something I was too excited about".
In the past, I've been in talks with an employer about a job, and my enthousiasm was only so-so, and that tended to put a brake on the proceedings.
That's perfectly fine but I'd expect the company, especially a company as large as Microsoft, to at least clarify the situation instead of just brutally ending communication.
I too have been in a similar situation (being interviewed at a startup and being clearly not super enthusiastic about the position being offered) but they decided to go with somebody else they gave me a courtesy call letting me know about it. I think it's the right thing to do.
I don't find it particularly weird either, but it makes for a much more nuanced narrative compared to "Microsoft wanted to hire you for your package manager and you rejected them."
I just think Microsoft should have found a way to credit the guy. Even just a footnote in their WinGet announcement blog post would have been better.
> I'm sure there was a reason they decided to not hire me. Maybe I had a shitty attitude? I don't know. I'm not questioning that. But I think an email letting me know and some credit would be fair to expect.
The big companies often end up ghosting the guys they don't want to hire. A long time ago, I was an intern and got fully ghosted by Nvidia. It was very annoying but my life probably worked out better for it.
There's a big difference between ghosting and sending a mail informing you that the process has stopped.
I realize I'm missing some context here, but I can't see how your life would work out better from _not_ receiving a heads up that the process has ended.
I try to assume no bad intentions these days.