Their process is documented at https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing So it co

Their process is documented at https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing So it could even be a pure hobby project - not something done for work - where the initial author (over a decade ago) chose to release it under Google's copyright rather than use the exception process.