Instead, you'd just let an engineer grab some AGPL code and use it in your web stack without considering the implications? I've seen it happen, and the engineer in question didn't understand why — or even that — it was a problem.
Sure, it's a little process-y, but it's not there just to check boxes on forms.
"I recently went through the approval process to contribute to a project on my own time."
Which I took to mean he needed formal approval to contribute to some external open source project on his own time, completely outside of work and unrelated to his work project. Which is pretty bonkers.
Of course if you're pulling open source in to your projects it is wise to have that reviewed first, though I have to admit that at my current job I'm slightly annoyed at the formality of things like having to apply to get Apache 2.0 licensed code brought into our Android project when the Android SDK itself is under exactly the same license as the OSS project. However, I also understand that I have a far better understanding of the implications of various open source licenses than Joe Average programmer guy, so I "get it".
He's not talking about using open source code, he's talking about contributing to open source in his own time.
I have a gut feeling I know which company he's talking about, because I used to work for them too. All contributions to open source, even off company time, must pass through the approval bureaucracy.
The worst part about it is that said bureaucracy is staffed with people permanently afraid that they will sign off on something that might at some unforeseeable point in the future come back to compete with the company, and their neck would be on the line for it.
The result being that they're incredibly risk-averse and not inclined to approve anything, even if it has zero relationship with what the company does. In other words, open source contributions are de facto banned throughout the company, but the company gets to make a lot of noise about how they're open to the idea.
I have one colleague who quit his job because of it, one of the best coders I've ever met. No surprise that the company overall has an attrition rate easily in the 20-25% per annum range.
I work for that company as well, and had I known their open source contribution policy was so draconian (and their general attitude toward open source so utterly mercenary), I would have thought twice before accepting the offer.
Sure, it's a little process-y, but it's not there just to check boxes on forms.