Comment by eigen-vector

This seems like a strictly Google only problem. And by extension this is the problem with promotion committees that are removed from day to day of the candidate getting promoted. People are ridiculously bad at measuring growth based on some obscure company wide criteria - which is abstract at best and useless at worst at a company large enough as Google.

I'm at AWS and the promotion process here is largely contained within the candidate's org which is at best two levels higher but in the same business. So if your team's business relies on contributions to FOSS, its impact is measurable and leaders and the 'committee' can easily tell you if your contributions are at the next level.