Really? This article sounds very over simplified, but I haven't worked at google so I wouldn't know. I'm assuming if you want to change some much depended on library, there's a way to up the version number so you don't hose all your downstream users. That's the way it worked at Amazon at least. Also, I wonder why the people in the story think Google's codebase is larger than that of other tech giants, not that it really matters.