4 ms·

Yikes. The lack of judgement involved in personally releasing something that could be confused for an official release (I was confused) by your employer is some

by xnx 4mo ago

Yikes. The lack of judgement involved in personally releasing something that could be confused for an official release (I was confused) by your employer is someone who has huge wildcard risk in the future. I would expect significant disciplinary action if they didn't follow procedure, and termination if they were directly warned at any point.

jbm 4mo ago
Your ships would have been sunk during the 2002 Millennial challenge and an entire bureaucracy would defend you for the next 20 years.
ktm5j 4mo ago
Yeah that's kind of the impression that I had.. should have ran it past his superiors. Hope he learns something from this instead of deflecting like he seems to be doing.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- wildrhythms 4mo ago
  His boss is the one that announced the tool.
- saghm 4mo ago
  Superiors like...his manager, who announced the project for him?
  - ktm5j 4mo ago
    If that's really the case (which isn't really clear from this post) then I feel like we're missing some details.
ingvay7 4mo ago
Particularly for a company that possibly has to navigate high-volume, often frivolous litigation and brand attacks from trolls. I have been in similar situations having to partner with legal defending the most frivolous things on products released. You literally sign docs to not do such things when u onboard. Not sure what the point of broadcasting this is though.
busterarm 4mo ago
Not only that but not clearing with your management that you're not working on something that is actually being worked on as a product. Definitely they put some manager and/or team in a very uncomfortable position releasing this.
- DangitBobby 4mo ago
  Management literally announced it for him.
  - busterarm 4mo ago
    That's a gross misunderstanding of corporate life. _A_ manager boosted it on twitter. It's not an announcement in the sense that companies announce things. You're also assuming that one team knows what the other is doing. This is literally the reason there are standard procedures for doing things like this.
sanderjd 4mo ago
Yeah this is super weird to me, because the processes at Google for employees to release and attribute ownership of open source projects are extremely clear and well established. It's genuinely hard for me to imagine this happening in a way that confused or caught the author off guard. It's totally fair to question the wisdom of those processes and policies! But I'm pretty skeptical of the "I'm surprised I got in trouble for this" narrative.
- QuantumGood 4mo ago
  Clueness sometimes goes hand-in-hand with perceived freedom. I think it's that cause and effect are not as often connected (consequences). I remember a Google employee updating a Google font that broke thousands of websites. Community members explained that Google recommended (at that time) letting Google host the font, and that they could fork it instead, or find a path that wouldn't break so many websites. The employee took the implication of consequences as being connected to ther actions as an aff(r)ont "They can just host it themselves"; "they can switch to another font/redesgin their site". When it was pointed out that the cause would not be known to most, and that budgets would have to be found to ferret out the cause and implement the solution, etc., etc., the Google employee stopped responding.
  - bonsai_bar 4mo ago
    We take annual training that warns us against doing what this engineer did.
    - sleepybrett 4mo ago
      yes we all pay attention to 'the training'
      - sanderjd 4mo ago
        Again, I'm pretty skeptical that this person completely missed this part of the training for seven years.
justinwp 4mo ago
You are assuming that it was "personally" releasing something and that the process wasn't followed.
- cmeacham98 4mo ago
  You continue to dance around this question on this post - did you or did you not follow Google's open source approval process[1]? Did you have an approved Ariane/Launcher2 entry? 1: https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing/approval https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing/...
  - justinwp 4mo ago
    Yes
- free652 4mo ago
  Did you have your launch approved? So did you follow the process?
- fg137 4mo ago
  Why isn't it under google's username on github? Why does the repo say "This is not an officially supported Google product."? Is it actually approved by Google or not? You need to actually answer these questions instead of dodging them.
  - frollogaston 4mo ago
    Are you the "serious consequences for ____" guy?
  - KennyBlanken 4mo ago
    The reason you think he's "dodging" the questions is because you clearly don't know anything about the situation, like the fact that it was published under the github organization used by the workgroup he was in, same as a lot of other software the group authored.
  - 4mo ago
gerdesj 4mo ago
The real problem is that OP is or wants to be an old school disruptor working at what used to be an exciting and disruptive employer (but isn't any more - its just a boring old money maker). OP crank out a pretty decent and well received, by the community, product and get absolutely canned because they are well out of touch of how Google now works. You don't do risk (without reward) at Google and you certainly don't show a bit of ankle or look exciting. Google are well out of the market for being interesting (outside of the balance sheet and P&L for those who fetishise in accountancy. Unfortunately: going viral isn't always a good thing as anyone who has experienced a nasty virus will attest.
- Aurornis 4mo ago
  > 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 write a lot of code very quickly with AI it expanded to something that resembled a full-blown product. Maybe uncharted territory as the previous assumption was that an individual DevRel person releasing scripts couldn't be mistaken for a supported product because one person couldn't produce that much code in the past.
  - frollogaston 4mo ago
    Dunno about 20, but 7 years ago, they fired a security engineer for forcing in a CL for their internal Chrome extensions to put a disapproving banner on certain anti-union websites. Wasn't a very harmful change, but because she left a clear paper trail of circumvented code/release reviews, she couldn't be trusted anymore.
    - nixon_why69 4mo ago
      That was a security engineer modifying internal security tooling without proper permissions/reviews. The union piece was probably extra motivation but still you just do not do that to security infra, it should always be a firing offense unless it was a truly exceptional circumstance. Conversely, this guy was in a DevRel role where it sounds like they released open source stuff all the time and the line was a lot more fuzzy (admittedly I've only heard one side of the story).
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
tlogan 4mo ago
In any reasonable company (with common sense leadership), someone would not be fired for doing something (with good intentions) that does not harm company very much. Releasing something like this did not really harm the company (the project is still on GitHub). Any smart executive could have spun the release of this CLI into a win. Even if some other team complained that this was encroaching on their work, a smart executive would say: “cool show me your work tomorrow morning so we can replace this with you work”
- xnx 4mo ago
  What if they were told not to do it and they still did?
  - tlogan 4mo ago
    I do not want to speculate too much. Sure, many things could have happened, even things unrelated to this project, that led to the firing. But since this project is still on GitHub, I would say the project itself was probably not so bad that releasing it should be a fireable offense. So my thinking is this: Did the employee act with the goal of helping the company? If the answer is yes, and the action did not cause serious harm to the company, then you do not fire the employee. At my old company, the employee would probably be sent to take a couple of courses related to whatever rule they broke. In general, smart people should be encouraged to take initiative. The real problem (and the reason why you have all these HR rules) is when you have stupid employees who take initiative. Actually, you should never hire someone who is both unintelligent and full of initiative. It is okay to hire someone who is stupid and lazy and has no initiative (You need those people too). And OP is obviously smart and talented and should be encouraged to take initiative.
  - mewpmewp2 4mo ago
    Depends on the reason. If there was a valid reason not to release it, then sure. But it's hard for me to see what can be so problematic about releasing a cli wrapper. It's hard to think of anything non political. And politics isn't valid reason to me. If someone from the leadership was e.g. blocking the release out of pettiness then I'd cheer on the person releasing it - assuming they know the risks.
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]

by xnx 4mo ago

jbm 4mo ago

Your ships would have been sunk during the 2002 Millennial challenge and an entire bureaucracy would defend you for the next 20 years.

ktm5j 4mo ago

Yeah that's kind of the impression that I had.. should have ran it past his superiors. Hope he learns something from this instead of deflecting like he seems to be doing.

deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
wildrhythms 4mo ago
His boss is the one that announced the tool.
saghm 4mo ago
Superiors like...his manager, who announced the project for him?
- ktm5j 4mo ago
  If that's really the case (which isn't really clear from this post) then I feel like we're missing some details.

ingvay7 4mo ago

Particularly for a company that possibly has to navigate high-volume, often frivolous litigation and brand attacks from trolls. I have been in similar situations having to partner with legal defending the most frivolous things on products released. You literally sign docs to not do such things when u onboard. Not sure what the point of broadcasting this is though.

busterarm 4mo ago

Not only that but not clearing with your management that you're not working on something that is actually being worked on as a product. Definitely they put some manager and/or team in a very uncomfortable position releasing this.

DangitBobby 4mo ago
Management literally announced it for him.
- busterarm 4mo ago
  That's a gross misunderstanding of corporate life. _A_ manager boosted it on twitter. It's not an announcement in the sense that companies announce things. You're also assuming that one team knows what the other is doing. This is literally the reason there are standard procedures for doing things like this.

sanderjd 4mo ago

Yeah this is super weird to me, because the processes at Google for employees to release and attribute ownership of open source projects are extremely clear and well established. It's genuinely hard for me to imagine this happening in a way that confused or caught the author off guard. It's totally fair to question the wisdom of those processes and policies! But I'm pretty skeptical of the "I'm surprised I got in trouble for this" narrative.

QuantumGood 4mo ago
Clueness sometimes goes hand-in-hand with perceived freedom. I think it's that cause and effect are not as often connected (consequences). I remember a Google employee updating a Google font that broke thousands of websites. Community members explained that Google recommended (at that time) letting Google host the font, and that they could fork it instead, or find a path that wouldn't break so many websites. The employee took the implication of consequences as being connected to ther actions as an aff(r)ont "They can just host it themselves"; "they can switch to another font/redesgin their site". When it was pointed out that the cause would not be known to most, and that budgets would have to be found to ferret out the cause and implement the solution, etc., etc., the Google employee stopped responding.
- bonsai_bar 4mo ago
  We take annual training that warns us against doing what this engineer did.
  - sleepybrett 4mo ago
    yes we all pay attention to 'the training'
    - sanderjd 4mo ago
      Again, I'm pretty skeptical that this person completely missed this part of the training for seven years.

justinwp 4mo ago

You are assuming that it was "personally" releasing something and that the process wasn't followed.

cmeacham98 4mo ago
You continue to dance around this question on this post - did you or did you not follow Google's open source approval process[1]? Did you have an approved Ariane/Launcher2 entry? 1: https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing/approval https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing/...
- justinwp 4mo ago
  Yes
free652 4mo ago
Did you have your launch approved? So did you follow the process?
fg137 4mo ago
Why isn't it under google's username on github? Why does the repo say "This is not an officially supported Google product."? Is it actually approved by Google or not? You need to actually answer these questions instead of dodging them.
- frollogaston 4mo ago
  Are you the "serious consequences for ____" guy?
- KennyBlanken 4mo ago
  The reason you think he's "dodging" the questions is because you clearly don't know anything about the situation, like the fact that it was published under the github organization used by the workgroup he was in, same as a lot of other software the group authored.
- 4mo ago

gerdesj 4mo ago

The real problem is that OP is or wants to be an old school disruptor working at what used to be an exciting and disruptive employer (but isn't any more - its just a boring old money maker). OP crank out a pretty decent and well received, by the community, product and get absolutely canned because they are well out of touch of how Google now works. You don't do risk (without reward) at Google and you certainly don't show a bit of ankle or look exciting. Google are well out of the market for being interesting (outside of the balance sheet and P&L for those who fetishise in accountancy. Unfortunately: going viral isn't always a good thing as anyone who has experienced a nasty virus will attest.

Aurornis 4mo ago
> 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 write a lot of code very quickly with AI it expanded to something that resembled a full-blown product. Maybe uncharted territory as the previous assumption was that an individual DevRel person releasing scripts couldn't be mistaken for a supported product because one person couldn't produce that much code in the past.
- frollogaston 4mo ago
  Dunno about 20, but 7 years ago, they fired a security engineer for forcing in a CL for their internal Chrome extensions to put a disapproving banner on certain anti-union websites. Wasn't a very harmful change, but because she left a clear paper trail of circumvented code/release reviews, she couldn't be trusted anymore.
  - nixon_why69 4mo ago
    That was a security engineer modifying internal security tooling without proper permissions/reviews. The union piece was probably extra motivation but still you just do not do that to security infra, it should always be a firing offense unless it was a truly exceptional circumstance. Conversely, this guy was in a DevRel role where it sounds like they released open source stuff all the time and the line was a lot more fuzzy (admittedly I've only heard one side of the story).

deleted 4mo ago

[deleted]

tlogan 4mo ago

In any reasonable company (with common sense leadership), someone would not be fired for doing something (with good intentions) that does not harm company very much. Releasing something like this did not really harm the company (the project is still on GitHub). Any smart executive could have spun the release of this CLI into a win. Even if some other team complained that this was encroaching on their work, a smart executive would say: “cool show me your work tomorrow morning so we can replace this with you work”

xnx 4mo ago
What if they were told not to do it and they still did?
- tlogan 4mo ago
  I do not want to speculate too much. Sure, many things could have happened, even things unrelated to this project, that led to the firing. But since this project is still on GitHub, I would say the project itself was probably not so bad that releasing it should be a fireable offense. So my thinking is this: Did the employee act with the goal of helping the company? If the answer is yes, and the action did not cause serious harm to the company, then you do not fire the employee. At my old company, the employee would probably be sent to take a couple of courses related to whatever rule they broke. In general, smart people should be encouraged to take initiative. The real problem (and the reason why you have all these HR rules) is when you have stupid employees who take initiative. Actually, you should never hire someone who is both unintelligent and full of initiative. It is okay to hire someone who is stupid and lazy and has no initiative (You need those people too). And OP is obviously smart and talented and should be encouraged to take initiative.
- mewpmewp2 4mo ago
  Depends on the reason. If there was a valid reason not to release it, then sure. But it's hard for me to see what can be so problematic about releasing a cli wrapper. It's hard to think of anything non political. And politics isn't valid reason to me. If someone from the leadership was e.g. blocking the release out of pettiness then I'd cheer on the person releasing it - assuming they know the risks.

deleted 4mo ago

[deleted]