Give Google+ time.

The transition from Facebook to The Next Big Thing isn't going to happen in the same way as such transition's have happened before (LiveJournal/Bebo/MySpace to Facebook/Twitter). The social networks of the past were largely populated by people of a certain age and/or with a certain level of technological literacy. This isn't the case with Facebook. Facebook is populated by many people for whom Facebook is their first and only social network. The sheer number of Facebook users alone makes it hard for any move to another platform to happen, and the entrenchment of the first-time social network users makes it virtually impossible.

Much as I love G+, time won't help it, because the social network churn will no longer take place. The only thing that will stop Facebook is when people eventually tire of the concept.

Have you tried using Google's 'switch account' feature? I'm using it at the moment, since my main account is an Apps account. It's still a bit of a faff to switch accounts whenever I want to use G+, but it's only four clicks, as opposed to logging out of one account and then logging in to the other.

Now, decision makers don't think twice about firing thousands of workers when the numbers take a temporary dip

I want to quote a part of the summary that is being missed by a lot of people who are putting forward an argument similar to yours (emphasis mine):

As a senior developer for a small IT company

Small companies won't fire thousands of employees at a time, because they don't have thousands of employees to fire. They certainly won't fire employees based on a brief downturn in numbers - it costs a small business a huge amount of resources in order to train somebody up, so they tend to hold on to people during dips so that they can cope when things pick up.

And the directors don't usually have to justify themselves to shareholders, because they are the shareholders.

I think "practically outside my front door" is awfully close. You'd have to be very careful that your work life doesn't encroach on your home life with that kind of proximity.

I would also make sure to get out enough. Get out of the office and go home for lunch, now that you can. And make sure to get out of the immediate area sometimes, preferably by walking or cycling. Aside from the physical exercise, it helps to move around a bit to avoid cabin fever setting in.

Actually I think the example of the ThinkPad X60 used by another commenter was more salient, as it referred to an actual product for sale, as opposed to a concept in an academic environment. I'm assuming of course that the UoT never commercialised it.

Multi-touch devices have been in existence longer than Apple has been around.

That's irrelevant, as we're talking about a trademark, not a patent. The relevant factor is whether or not it was called 'multi-touch' by anyone before Apple.

And obviously, the fact that it's generic, which is what the ruling came down to.

CS is programming.

I have a problem with this. Programming is not science, so 'computer science' is a complete misnomer. 'Information technology' more accurately describes what a programmer actually does.

What if the parachute catches the hot air in the crater, and gets pushed back out again? (I don't know if this is possible, but I like the idea.)

In any case, I wouldn't want to descend gently into a pit of lava. I'd want to hit it as fast as I possible could.

Ah, I see. Thanks for clearing that up for me. I was basing my assumption on the text of the licence, which at no point mentions 'linking to'. Here is how it defines a derivative work:

The "Program", below, refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program" means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in the term "modification".)

However, if the prevailing interpretation is that linking must occur, and if that's an interpretation that the copyright holders are happy with, then fair enough.

Dude, that's irrelevant.

It's not irrelevant, it's the core tenet of the GPL.

These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.

Emphasis mine. Android's Apache-licensed sections are not being distributed as separate works.

What I'm curious about is, do the current limits of NFC payment systems apply to this?

I have a Visa PayWave debit card, and I can't make purchases with the NFC portion of it if the total is greater than £15. That's fine for the card, because it also works as a Chip&PIN card. But that's not possible with a phone.

To cut a long story short, unless/until the £15 limit goes away, you're still going to have to carry a regular card in a regular wallet.

It's one project, but the Linux sources are separate from the rest, so the licences need not be compatible. There are no stipulations in the GPL or Apache licenses that say that you need to keep the source code separate from code with other licenses.

Define 'separate'. They're certainly not separate when you download the Android development environment, which includes an Android emulator. It's shipped as one cohesive product. Whatever separation is kept in Google's development labs is irrelevant - they are being distributed as one product, and the GPL is a licence that is concerned with distribution.

I'm pretty sure that if there were any incompatibilities, someone would've noticed it before. It's not like this is an obscure project someone created last week.

Here's what I think. I think that the people who would normally be up in arms about this are also heavily invested in Android, both financially and emotionally. They own Android devices and love them. They are not about to point out the elephant in the room.

I'm also sure that Google has a lawyer or two on their payrole.

Precisely my point. Who is going to go up against Google's lawyers over a GPL violation?

Like I said, the Linux kernel specifically allows anyone to run whatever they want in the user space (without that provision, you would only be able to run GPL compatible code on your system, which would be too limiting, even for the FSF).

That's not quite accurate, because the GPL doesn't limit what you can or can't run on a Linux system. What it does limit is what you can distribute.

I understand that the Apache licence on its own allows this, but it's irrelevant because that licence is not being used in isolation. The GPL imposes its restrictions on all the source code of a derivative work, so even the code that was originally Apache licensed needs to comply with the terms of the GPL.

After doing a bit more reading, I'm now even more confused, because the FSF considers the GPLv2 and the Apache licence to be mutually incompatible. So with its current licensing, Google shouldn't be able to ship Android at all.

What I don't understand is, how can they get away with not publishing the 3.0 source code now? It's software built on Linux, which is GPLv2, and it's being shipped as a complete product, so surely they're required by the terms of the kernel licence to license everything under the GPL?

I've never heard a satisfactory answer to this, other than "It's Google, who's going to stop them?"