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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

#211

Post by cute_boi »

khazhoux wrote: post #171

I see justinwp is commenting here… Justin, people are asking questions that you’re not replying to. Sorry, but it’s pretty disingenuous to tweet your story and post it here , but then refuse to answer requests for more info. > I think the cause was that Workspace and certain leaders (and projects) were afraid of being disrupted. But the fear wasn't specific to my CLI, it was a broader fear in what agents meant for Wo…

The read me clearly says "This is not an officially supported Google product.". I am not getting what you want to imply here and what you expect him to reply here.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#212

Post by fhub »

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #199
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…

Bottom line, he did something that affected the company without any authority. His action implied the product was Google blessed without the company fully knowing about it. Google has spent billions to protect its reputation and then you have a random guy put out a self create product without the company even knowing. They had a case for suing him for millions. Of Course, they wouldn't have been able to collect but i…

The director that did the announcement tweet may have provided some authority. He seems to have left Google voluntarily recently after 14 years.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#213

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

nailer wrote: post #202
WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bottom line, he did something that affected the company without any authority. His action implied the product was Google blessed without the company fully knowing about it. Google has spent billions to protect its reputation and then you have a random guy put out a self create product without the company even knowing. They had a case for suing him for millions. Of Course, they wouldn't have been able to collect but i…

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 man-hours to make sure whatever product they put out is as good as possible. And support it on any issues that are found along the way. All companies protect their logo to a high degree simply because of the implications it has when people see it.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#215

Post by matheusmoreira »

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #199
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…

Bottom line, he did something that affected the company without any authority. His action implied the product was Google blessed without the company fully knowing about it. Google has spent billions to protect its reputation and then you have a random guy put out a self create product without the company even knowing. They had a case for suing him for millions. Of Course, they wouldn't have been able to collect but i…

> and then you have a random guy put out a self create product

Random guy? He was a Google employee. Looks like he was just doing his job.

> Google has spent billions to protect its reputation

Not sure billions are enough here, since Google's reputation is terrible in spite of it, and this episode certainly isn't helping.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#216

Post by whstl »

magicalist wrote: post #208
cdata wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was there, there was no universal process; different teams had different processes based on their focus. There was a launch process for Google products and there was the open source office for approving open source code (which amounted to a rubber stamp in my experience; they mainly checked for boilerplate issues). As I said above, my team and others were allowed to publish at our discretion. Even if this pers…

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

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#217

Post by socalgal2 »

dekhn wrote: post #122
nomel wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never worked for an employer, from pizza delivery, to corporate intern, to multiple startup, to FAANG, that didn't have this VERY CLEARLY worded in the employment agreement, right up top: 1. Any work you do during company time/resources/equipment, is company property. 2. Anything public related to work, or that could be considered as competing or providing the service in the same space as work, needs to be vette…

The policy was always crystal clear, but at the same time, tons of people found it confusing. "I wrote this at home on my personal computer in my free time? Why does google own it? how can that be legal" came up a lot. People would get into huge fights with OSPO over this.

Writing at home is irrelevant if what you're doing is related to the company's business. You can't be working for Google and making a browser, a document editor, a spreadsheet, a mapping site, etc... It doesn't matter if you do it on your own time. Yea, you can grow coffee and sell it at retail stores on your own time. No you can't complete directly with your employer. If it's some gray area then you either get permission first or wait for the courts if you get sued.

This isn't unique to Google. It's basic common law. No contract needs to be signed. Competing with your employer is immoral. If you want to compete then quit and be a competitor. If you're taking their money as an employee then you have a "duty of loyalty"

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#218

Post by nailer »

genxy wrote: post #124
Eridrus wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He mentioned that he worked in DevRel and making open source tools like this was a common thing they did: https://x.com/JPoehnelt/status/2069535183158812698 I don't know the legal situation, so maybe they felt like they had to do this to not face liability of some sort, but this feels like the wrong outcome vs e.g. having engineers rewrite it from scratch or move it to a less obviously google affiliated place. You sh…

DevRel does generally get free reign to post stuff to github all the time. Many teams and projects do not have to comply with the standardized open source releasing process.

AFAICT his manager and one of the champions for the tool was Addy Osmani, who is one of the top front end Devrel people globally and who has also left Google recently.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#219

Post by whstl »

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…

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. There's plenty of "not officially supported" projects in Google's Github.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#220

Post by nailer »

NewsaHackO wrote: post #205
nmfisher wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? Not really, no. I'd expect a stern reprimand, but getting fired is extreme. I'm not sure if Google is still an attractive place to work, but this incident certainly isn't helping tip the scales.

I guess it may be semantics, but I agree that I would have the same expectation. However, I also I think getting fired would be a justified punishment in the situation. It’d like playing a computer game during free library time at the school when I was a kid; I would expect to be reprimanded, however just outright barring use from the computer during free time would probably be justified.

Releasing open source tools showing off what you can do with your company’s APIs is part of the job description for a devrel (signed: a devrel).
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