Question: Does this openness also include the things that WebOS was amazing at? Like Swipe Up to close, card stacks, etc?
Is, say Google, allowed to use that without paying royalties? Or does HP still own those software patents?
Is, say Google, allowed to use that without paying royalties? Or does HP still own those software patents?
I don't know that we'll ever see card stacks and the like in Android, but many of the best UI changes in Android 4.0+ have been ideas that Duarte brought with him. The way Android handles notifications now would be a pretty good example.
I think ICS's Recent Apps view and Chrome's card-like tab switching show that Google is (cautiously?) approaching a card stack UI.
"The Beta release is comprised of 54 webOS components available as opensource. This brings over 450,000 lines of code released under the Apache 2.0 license, which is one of the most liberal and accepted in the open source community."
And again, IANAL, but I assume the implication is that you can't just grab some code and stick it alongside your app for protection. You are only protected if you actually used the license-giving code in your app in the intended way. So this would not help Android, which does not build upon WebOS.