CM is based on OSS code largely developed by Google, yes. But if you avoid Google apps you're sort of ditching Google. Google is one of the biggest contributor

CM is based on OSS code largely developed by Google, yes. But if you avoid Google apps you're sort of ditching Google. Google is one of the biggest contributors to Linux and also contributes to Mozilla in various ways, for example. You can't (practically) avoid all the fruits of Google, but you can avoid directly using them.