Steve is a smart guy, and I'm pretty sure he realizes that copies have been made and will be available forever and then a bit longer still.

The bit that I don't get: Even if Steve's release was accidental, if you write something like this even when it is for internal use only, you can still count on it being reposted in a public place. 'All of google' is a large number of people, all it takes is one copy and the genie will never go back in to the bottle.

If you want to keep something to yourself don't store it on a company website or write it out in an email.

Company confidential typically translates into 'delayed, uncontrolled publication' or 'evidence to be used against you' depending on the circumstances.

If you can't stand by your statements in full view then you probably shouldn't make them to 10K+ people, especially not when you're a well noted blogger.

There must have been thousands or tens of thousands Google-internal blog posts, Buzzes, emails and now Plus updates about people's perception of what's horribly wrong with some aspect of Google. AFAIK none of those leaked widely. Why would this be different?

Because Steve is very visible. Random googler 'x' giving his opinion is one thing, a guy with the stature of Steve Yegge doing the same is quite another.

Especially one where he pretty much writes that Google's #1 is not 'Steve Jobs'.

Really, I think that no matter what that this would have found its way to the general public somehow. That said, I think it's great that he speaks his mind like this, even if it is intended for an internal audience only.

Internal blog posts written by Yegge earlier didn't leak afaik. Incendiary technical posts written by people in positions of power didn't leak. I mean, not even hints of them, let alone the full text. Maybe the engineering culture has dramatically changed in the last few months, but it used to be the case that full copying of internal technical discussions to external forums would have been totally unthinkable.

I considered it, but seeing as it was out in the open already and Steve's later remarks, I decided it would not make much difference.