What's happening over at Google? Is this an April Fools joke?

No. Their Google joke was http://mail.google.com/mail/help/motion.html

Lets also note that Daring Fireball is not the most credible source to cite. Although he posts interesting critiques (usually), he is a Apple fanatic and is quick to jump on any bad reviews of an android products with an “I told you so” or cherry pick particular pro-apple news to “showcase”.

That being said, I’m not too bent out of shape about this. Android has always had potential, but it’s suffered from fragmentation all along. My friend just got his Android 2.2 update the other day after it’s been out for months on other phone manufacturers and networks.

Here’s hoping that this new little venture on google’s part will actually make Android good.

I hope it’s not a joke. Android will do good with this. It’s one of the reasons the AppStore is so successful even though people don’t really want to admit that it’s the right way to go.

Again, I hope it isn’t :/

As far as I can tell, this isn’t something that Google or any other single party can actually enforce. Looking over the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system) page on Wikipedia, it looks like Google owns Android Inc. but that neither owns the codebase enough to enforce “no more willy-nilly tweaks to the software” or “no more partnerships outside Google’s purview” (I’m pretty sure the Open Handset Alliance is outside that purview.)
They can certainly restrict “early access to Google’s most up-to-date software” but that only means others will develop their own software that is equally up-to-date, breaking compatibility with Google’s code as likely as not. This would be a bad move on their part, and I hope they know it.

Also, I’m pretty sure at least some parts of Android are still GPL licensed, which means neither Google nor anyone else can lock them down in that way.
Please note that my link above got munched. Apparently Fluther has a problem with parentheses in URL’s. Copypasta for joy.

First off, it is possible that the source is full of it anyways. Second, an April Fool’s joke may post on 31 Mar based on time zone differences among other things. But I think that @koanhead brings up the most important points regarding the true relationship between Google and Android.

Also note that if Google even thought about contemplating the possibility of even having the idea to do that, it would be hacked and cracked mercilessly. If you think that iPhones see a lot of jailbreaking, wait until you see what a few million pissed-off Linux hackers can do ;)

BTW here is a working link

@koanhead Close; Android uses the Apache license, though that is compatible with GPLv3

Im going to say its true since I just read the same thing on a multitude of sites. Now its entirely possible they were all duped but it doesnt seem likely IMO.

@jerv Thanks for the correction. I feel the need to look more into that licensing situation, but not tonight, I think.

The link you posted cited this article from Business Week (cite #2), which I suspect may be the source from which Daring Fireball bases its accusations:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2011/tc20110324_269784.htm

It doesn’t seem to be that big a deal from this perspective.

@uberbatman Bear in mind that this fake map also was on a multitude of sites. Repeating something often enough does not make it true.

@koanhead That sounds like a reasonable extrapolation. It also sounds like the worst case scenario is a fork; smartphones on one side and tablets on the other.

It’s too bad we don’t have the date and time of postings. This evening’s, April 1, news was full of the fact that it was all an April Fool joke. Good for Google.

From Bloomberg Do Not Anger the Alpha Android It was a March 30 article, two days before April Fools’.

@BarnacleBill GA, and very informative. However, I think that the last sentence may be overlooked:

“The bottom line: Despite grumblings, Google’s Android mobile operating system is still open—it’s just getting more heavily policed.”

@jerv good point.