The GPL is a license, not a Contributor Agreement or a Copyright Transfer. The author remains the owner of the copyright when they let others use it under a license, even open source licenses like the GPL.

Licensing a software out does not mean the author can no longer "claim any ownership". In the case of OSS licenses, it just means that they can't claim sole ownership.

Yes, but from the perspective of the end user (me), the license guarantees that I can use the current version of the software for free forever without Google or anyone else forcing any changes.

Plus, if I don't like any changes they make, I can fork my own copy and continue developing on that (which the community will certainly do in a heartbeat if needed).

Yes, of course. I was just trying to clarify that that guarantee is due to the software being licensed to you and not because ownership gets transferred from the author.

so right now, Google has a word to say about the direction of git.... But that's normal.