I read a linked article on here recentlyish that made an interesting note about the impact of Google being an advertising company: Android is Google's effort to

I read a linked article on here recentlyish that made an interesting note about the impact of Google being an advertising company: Android is Google's effort to create a defense moat by blasting a 100-mile crater around their ad properties. They can't turn Android into Broadway or a popup factory, but they can carefully court the DoJ (who fired the antitrust case at Microsoft in the 90s) and creatively push the boundaries. Looking at it that way, Google have little incentive to rock their own boat. There's also some interesting ponderation to be had considering why Android BSP propagation/vendor branding works the way it does in light of the above. Absolute device control (aka a flagship device) is likely only an option for Google (and Microsoft, thinking about it!) because of the competition; in fact now I wonder how fine the line is that Apple's skating (although I imagine the competition is what keeps them going as well). In any case, I see Fuchsia as Google's equivalent of Microsoft Singularity. I'm trying to figure out what kind of point they're making by developing it in the open; they've likely gone through a hundred similar initiatives internally, as did/have Microsoft. Although now I think about it, Google do seem to have some practical business/real-world targets to hit with this (IoT is the likeliest actual hit) so maybe they're just publicizing it for that reason. Regarding the openness of the kernel, all I can do is hope like mad that the kernel generally stays open on production devices (in "end-user" mode), or that there's some sort of developer option (and hardware, if necessary) available. And I can only hope like mad that Google figured out and appreciate the massive value of an open device, and don't do anything monumentally stupid. Fuchsia has an open repository, at least, which is a very nice start.