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Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

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Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#221

Post by NikolaNovak »

cdata wrote: post #131

I'm noticing a few commenters who work (worked?) at Google (inferred from comment history) who are critical of this person's actions. First: you ought to disclose that information when commenting on a topic that relates in some way to your financial incentives. Second: when I worked at Google under Chrome it was very common for individuals and teams to publish projects to open source repositories under Google-managed…

Fascinating!

First, to your point, I'm Not a googler or ex googler.

That being said, for what little may be worth, No company I worked for would be ok for me releasing unauthorized code to official public report with official logo and company name without some approval / discussion / disclosure, at whatever appropriate level that may be m. I'm curious, On your previous team, did your manager know and approve of open source publications? Team mates? Did they have names like "Google Hangouts X" and accompanying logos etc?

I guess what strikes me negatively and mutes my empathy is the "zero lessons learned" part of the tweet:

>>"I think the cause was that Workspace and certain leaders (and projects) were afraid of being disrupted"

I'm not quite silicon valley enough to use the word disrupted unironically, and certainly not self-unaware enough to proclaim that as the one and only reason for my misfortunes. I hope they and any family they have are ok. I feel if they had actual grievance with the firing, they should've gone through appropriate legal remedy. Twitter drama is just a zero-win game to me :-/

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#222

Post by jofzar »

djeastm wrote: post #110
echoangle wrote: post #53

Interesting that people here seem so sympathetic to the fired guy. Wouldn’t you kind of expect to be fired if you release a project under your employers name that’s not even associated with them and hasn’t been cleared? Working for them actually makes it worse because people could look up your name and would see that you actually work for google. It’s kind of obvious that this is a bad idea, right?

He seems to be a good coder with poor judgment. But I think it would be wiser to manage him better than to fire him so long as he recognizes what he did was wrong. I'm a bit of a softie for the clueless, brilliant coders, though.

My bet is that he was reprimanded for this and then didn't back down, hes even in the comments here now arguing about it

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#223

Post by magicalist »

whstl wrote: post #216
magicalist wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Releasing vibe coded handling of google account credentials seems like the biggest problem with this. Agreed it's gross if the big problem with execs was that it got social media buzz and it embarrassed official products or something.

The repo is still online and is official [1], so Google doesn't really seem to care about its existence. [1] https://developers.google.com/workspace/drive/api/samples

It's a fair point that it's still up, though looking just now for two minutes there are at least some issues with auth[1] which would make me really not trust it.

It was just speculation about what could be bad enough if they really did have permission to release it, but the OP is being so cagey below now I'm just wondering if they got release permission but misrepresented what they would be releasing or something.

> and is official [1]

FWIW no idea what you're trying to point out on that page unless you mean the one link to a different project in the same github org indicates the org is official, but that never seemed in doubt in this thread of comments.

[1] https://github.com/googleworkspace/cli/issues/780

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#224

Post by Grombobulous »

davidgay wrote: post #195
financltravsty wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This ethos doesn't gel with the old ethos and that's where the disconnect comes from. At one point Google was there to build cool shit and enable people to do it; not extract maximal amount of value and "being Evil" by the values of its time.

The open source policy described above was in place 16 years ago (I went through it to continue working on some existing projects), and I doubt it was very new then.

And it's not just about open source, it's about the author of this tool using trademarks and effectively impersonating Google.

Judging by the screenshot of the repo, I think most people who download this would think that it's official Google software.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#225

Post by amanharshx »

FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #52
logicchains wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People ask why Google's Gemini is falling behind the competition in spite of Google's immense resources, this kind of thing is an example why.

the Antigravity AI suite is hugely popular among non-developers

antigravity is one of the worst tools i have ever encountered with

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#226

Post by nailer »

whstl wrote: post #219
WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Workspace is but the CLI is not. These are 2 related but different products. Had he just released it under his name then that wouldn't have been such a big issue, maybe, but he used the Google logo which implied it was Google blessed. If I did the same thing, they would have a case for suing me. Just because you work for Google does not mean you can release products under their name. Google spends countless of…

It was not released under his name. It is in Google's own googleworkspace Github Organization, alongside 57 other similar projects that consume from the same API. The organization hosts repos shown here: https://developers.google.com/workspace/drive/api/samples > Google spends countless of man-hours to make sure whatever product they put out is as good as possible That's 100% not true for those kinds of projects. The…

Not complaining about the downvoting but everything in this comment is verifiable from the links you provided.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#227

Post by jkaplowitz »

trollbridge wrote: post #64
jkaplowitz wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> does Google have strict procedures (and approvals) before launching a product? I worked at Google in the past, most recently ending in early 2015, and can confirm that the answer to this question was yes when I was there - presumably still the case today with different details. I have no idea whether the procedures were followed in this case, nor do I have any other inside information on this story, nor am I speaki…

It was certainly the case for me back circa... I can barely remember, 2008/2009? Everyone just launched tools internally, although it was pretty easy to get approval to launch something externally, although most people didn't bother. The environment back then had tons of internal tools all over the place.

Oh yeah, I'm referring to external launches, not to internal launches.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#228

Post by Grombobulous »

gerdesj wrote: post #160
Aurornis wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what used to be an exciting and disruptive employer (but isn't any more - its just a boring old money maker). I feel sorry for this person, but I would be surprised if this would have been okay at Google in the past 20 years. It wouldn't have been okay at any company I've ever worked at, big or small. I think there's a valid argument that this started as a simple DevRel script or trick, but due to the way you can w…

I would encourage this sort of thing in my company. I'm not google. I'm not legally beholden to anyone except myself and my business partners ... and my own sense (which is worryingly odd!) Google can never be exciting or interesting evermore by design and intent. They dived on in and went "money" full on. They exist to generate revenue for their shareholders. They dumped the "Don't be evil" thing without blushing.

I think your encouragement is admirable but could be interpreted as naive.

For one thing, the author of this tool used Google trademarks (the logo) to represent the project.

If you are even slightly larger than a mom and pop small business you pretty much have to defend that trademark or else you risk losing it.

But, okay, fine, you can just tell them not to use your trademark and have them say it's not an official thing. No big deal.

The other thing I would say is that growing beyond even a relatively small number of employees fundamentally changes everything. Once you don't have that face to face with all your employees that trust level between you and them can't possibly be the same, no matter how good your intentions are. Even a modest company with 25-50 people...how well can you know those people, really? Even if you try your hardest to know them?

Once you have a certain number of employees you run into probabilistic realities.

Google has over 100,000 employees, which means statistically speaking a few of them have committed or will commit homicide. The idea of "we trust all our employees" can't exist from a mathematical perspective, even if the leadership happens to be the nicest people in the world who really want their employees to have freedom and autonomy.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#229

Post by michaellee8 »

Grombobulous wrote: post #224
davidgay wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The open source policy described above was in place 16 years ago (I went through it to continue working on some existing projects), and I doubt it was very new then.

And it's not just about open source, it's about the author of this tool using trademarks and effectively impersonating Google. Judging by the screenshot of the repo, I think most people who download this would think that it's official Google software.

tbh i assumed that is an official product too

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#230

Post by [deleted] »

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #213
nailer wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a CLI for Google Workspace. Google Workspace is a genuine Google Product. Edit reply to person below (sorry, rate limit): > Just because you work for Google does not mean you can release products under their name. Releasing open source projects that use company APIs is about 50% of the work of devrel staff. The rest is making content about what you and your customers did/could build.

Google Workspace is but the CLI is not. These are 2 related but different products. Had he just released it under his name then that wouldn't have been such a big issue, maybe, but he used the Google logo which implied it was Google blessed. If I did the same thing, they would have a case for suing me. Just because you work for Google does not mean you can release products under their name. Google spends countless of…

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