[ashdksnndck]

It seems like the guy believed he was just doing his job for Google, not moonlighting? He released the project on Google’s own GitHub. It seems more like he misunderstood the necessary steps before making that release.

[fooqux]

Exactly my thoughts. This reads to me like a case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing, and a scape goat being jettisoned to save face afterwards.

The repo wasn't even taken down.

[hn_throwaway_99]

> It seems more like he misunderstood the necessary steps before making that release.

Dude worked there for 7 years. Saying "oh, he just didn't understand the policy for going through legal/management approval" just does absolutely not pass the sniff test.

[whstl]

Plus there are 57 projects in that workspace from the same team, most using the same API, in quite a few the fired dev is participating. On top of that, the CLI project wasn't even deleted.

If there were/are real problems there, Google hasn't acted on them in any proper manner, and has not communicated properly with any of the parts involved, which is natural when legal/HR is involved.

[pydry]

This is definitely helps make the case that it was a spiteful exec primarily concerned with their own fiefdom that got the guy canned.

I did think when the guy released the tool that it seemed a bit out of character for google to be that responsive to customer feedback.

[PurpleRamen]

Policies change or have subtle context-specific details. Even after 7 years, people can lack basic knowledge for certain situations.

[cromka]

There's a small chance they actually still don't get it and that blog post is just a testimony to how unfairly hurt they feel.