Can anyone comment on how much resources are spent on making something 'releasable'? Not just packaging and the initial commit/support, but spending the time to make it generic enough to be useful to other users.
Oh, and there's also no documentation, so that would need to be done.
Anyway, the point is, taking something internal and prepping it for widespread release can be a fairly substantial undertaking.
It varies depending on your infrastructure and whether the issues were thought about at the time of design.
For example, in Google's case, there are plenty of pieces of software that would be insane to open source (time-wise, it would take many years to come up with something someone else could use).
On average though, if they had planned on open sourcing it, so that there is some chance it's reusable, someone is probably still spending at least a few weeks, maybe a few months, to make it useful to others.
Most of the time, when you build something "on the clock" and/or with company resources, they own it. Therefore, you are probably not allowed to make licensing decisions or release it without clearing it through proper channels. Regardless of what you think or even the nebulous "company" thinks, at the end of the day, someone - probably a senior exec or legal counsel - will have to authorize it.
I think this article does a huge disservice in not noting that.