You don't think this kind of open-ended language makes it pretty non-free:

"You agree that you will not take any actions that may cause or result in the fragmentation of Android, including but not limited to distributing, participating in the creation of, or promoting in any way a software development kit derived from the SDK."

Any action? Promoting? Does this mean that I can't write a blog post about developing for Kindle Fire? Hell, can I even buy a Kindle Fire and not break these terms (or install Cyanogenmod) seeing that it is just "including but not limited to" the SDK itself?

Users of GPL/LGPL don't have to agree to anything. Only distributors of GPL/LGPL software do.

Yes, that's true.

Most people misunderstand the license, being my favourite:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLRequireSourcePos...

EDIT: just in case... "You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or run a copy of the Program.", point 9 of the GPLv3: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

You guys are right, I was wrong. As others have pointed out, Android SDK has never been free software and Android SDK != Android

Does not seem to be GPL, here's just one clause:

3.4 You agree that you will not take any actions that may cause or result in the fragmentation of Android, including but not limited to distributing, participating in the creation of, or promoting in any way a software development kit derived from the SDK.

You end up making quite broad promises (IMHO) by just clicking through to download the SDK.

If only Sun had thought to include those magic words "You agree that you will not take any actions that may cause or result in the fragmentation of Java" in the JDK/JRE download web pages then Sun v. Microsoft and Oracle v. Google would have turned out differently?

If not, then what does this wording even mean in practice?

You don't have to agree to the GPL to use the software - it explicitly states this - just to redistribute or modify it.

Somewhere long ago someone raised the point that the GPL doesn't actually give you the right to use the covered software.

Is it conceivable that a company could offer source via GPL yet demand a separate license for the right to use it?

Section 2 of the GPLv3

>This License explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run the unmodified Program.

it also protects your freedom to modify and run modified versions of the software