... except for whenever you've got to communicate or exist inside the Google ecosystem. Now you've got "protobuf as per Google" and "protobuf as per internet randos" with twice the dependency graph.

It's unfortunate, and not surprising, that Google hasn't made a protobuf spec. I realize there are a ton of protobuf fans out there but, personally, it just feels like a massive, awkwardly maintained mess that I'm forced to live with for (mostly) their benefit.