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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

#301

Post by cromka »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #288
ashdksnndck wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

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.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#302

Post by whstl »

no-name-here wrote: post #240
DANmode wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> follow the proper release procedures for it What happens when your thing or nothing close to your thing will ever see the light of day?

1. If google said ok but don't release under google’s name/in google’s repo, do that. 2. If google said no this goes against our goals for the product, don't release it if you want to keep working for google?

It was clearly greenlighted by management. The person who made the announcement was Addy Osmani, who was manager of the fired developer at the time.

This is in a Google-owned organization, with several other similar repositories, a lot of them using the same API.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#303

Post by WinstonSmith84 »

jedc wrote: post #258
bonsai_bar wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it so extreme? If you work at Google, there's a very clear policy for doing any outside "work" (volunteering, an open source side project, a business, being on a board, etc.): if it's related to your day-to-day work and/or related to Google's business (which virtually anything software is), you need to fill out a disclosure form and get a go-ahead from legal. Obviously a Google Workspace CLI is related to Google.…

It looks like the account where this repo was published was the one used by Google Workspace DevRel? (And that’s the team this guy worked on.) That makes this quite a bit different situation than publishing the repo on a personal account.

> That makes this quite a bit different situation than publishing the repo on a personal account.

If that was the issue, it's not very hard to delete it either... Either nobody cares, or that repo is not as bad as for Google as it seems.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#304

Post by blitzar »

khazhoux wrote: post #172
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…

> I'm noticing a few commenters who work (worked?) at Google (inferred from comment history) who are critical of this person's actions. Tangent: did you really go through people’s histories far back enough to find out they were googlers/ex-googlers? Did you use an agent to do that?

How do you know that a HN commenter worked at Google - they will tell you.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#305

Post by modo_mario »

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.

That's because from what i gather so far it is a google repo with other tools using the same api they kept it in there since and even had it announced by the guy's manager at the time.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#306

Post by huflungdung »

justinwp wrote: post #2

I am not going to share much more than what I already have, but I think this speaks to the experience of working in big tech and the disruption caused by AI both at the level of teams/roadmaps/incentives and changing user behavior.

[dead]

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#307

Post by morpheuskafka »

jedc wrote: post #258
bonsai_bar wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it so extreme? If you work at Google, there's a very clear policy for doing any outside "work" (volunteering, an open source side project, a business, being on a board, etc.): if it's related to your day-to-day work and/or related to Google's business (which virtually anything software is), you need to fill out a disclosure form and get a go-ahead from legal. Obviously a Google Workspace CLI is related to Google.…

It looks like the account where this repo was published was the one used by Google Workspace DevRel? (And that’s the team this guy worked on.) That makes this quite a bit different situation than publishing the repo on a personal account.

> getting grilled by legal about why the Google logo and brand colors are on the Google Workspace GitHub code repositories.

The wording is very ambiguous, but to me it suggests the opposite. If legal was question why the logo was on the account profile picture, not just that specific repo's content, that would imply the entire account was unauthorized, right?

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#308

Post by blitzar »

socalgal2 wrote: post #217
dekhn wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 permi…

Its almost like the junior technofeudalists think the rules dont apply to them.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#309

Post by pydry »

frollogaston wrote: post #143
pydry wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Struggling to see how google was harmed by this but yea it's true he didn't dot the i's and cross the ts. I actually thought when it was released that it was a pretty clever move by google in a sea of bad decisions but they've cleared that misapprehension right up.

As a customer and dev, it's confusing to me when I look at Google's stuff and see official-looking unofficial CLIs.

As a customer who uses open source I care more about whether it works well than whether it's officially sanctioned but I can see how some of google management and its employees would take a diametrically opposite view to the i dotting and t crossing.

There are a couple of unsanctioned clients in particular where I'd take a dim view of the company trying to kill them and one where it actually happened to wide condemnation.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#310

Post by youngtaff »

dolmen wrote: post #79
free652 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 months later, I think we can assume some kind of process behind that didnt go well for our friend here.

It looks like he wants his former manager to be fired too. This only gives bad signals to hiring teams.

His former manager left Google last week
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