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I don’t work at google. Maybe I should also include that disclaimer. Just in case somebody thinks ol’ smudgy is pumping out official google projects.

Sometimes big companies aren't paying because they want you to do a job; they're paying because they want you.

It's possible sometimes to get Google to disclaim ownership of stuff that's genuinely unrelated. There is a process. (Or was when I left.)

On the other hand, if you want to work on open source on company time or use the code at work (which may have been part of the point of writing it), being able to do so is nice.

The process still exists, but it's discouraged for open-source projects. On the other hand, most open-source projects don't care who owns the copyright.