Just a very sad departure from more humanistic values towards "well technically their legal rights take precedence over common good."
Especially that he's an "engineer" not a "Googler" or "a person."
God what a fall from grace.
I was there in 2005 and we were basically told point-blank that we couldn't open source _anything_ without running it by a manager first. This was at a time where all engineers were basically housed in the main 4 buildings on the north campus, so not yet all that big. Not sure what grace they fell from, but I found it to be a nauseating sanctimonious place even then.
I'd much rather be an "engineer" than a "Googler" (I don't work at Google) or any other corporate cutesy name. No thanks...