The person they're replying to straight up claimed "Google doesn't have control over Chromium", which to me reads most naturally as treating the unforked code b

The person they're replying to straight up claimed "Google doesn't have control over Chromium", which to me reads most naturally as treating the unforked code base as a community project where anyone can submit commits. As you noted, I don't think forking and maintaining a Google sized code base is a realistic alternative. But by the same token, I don't think that the possibility of forking said code base is what people typically mean by not having control.