Pity. They said it’s because they’re afraid someone outside Google would use it, which is legitimate for companies without sufficient technical SBOL controls to prevent using third party software in violation of its terms. Their take is basically “we don’t have a way to keep our internal software internal, so you can’t use it at all, ever, for anything”. I wouldn’t have expected that of them.

That makes sense. GPL 3 is basically a non-starter for people that ship hardware, but is fine for people that provide web services.

AGPL would level the playing field between Google and device manufacturers and on-prem software companies (like Apple and Microsoft).

Of course they don’t want their employees to use and indirectly support that ecosystem!

I wish they’d produce a GPL 4 that is closer to the AGPL. v3 backfired and is severely hurting end-users’ freedom in practice.

I know, but why?

Due to their size, they must have one of the best legal department in the world. Also, their core business is search, and data processing in general. They have the means of using such software and doing what it takes to comply with the licence without putting themselves in trouble.

My guess is simply that they don't want to. They prefer to rewrite it, which will allow them to monetize their tools as proprietary software later. They are already overstaffed with some of the best developers, they can rewrite stuff, and they don't really need help from the open source community, that's why they don't release under copyleft themselves.