"why are there small desktop linux competitors?" How are they different from the Android forks showing up around the world? How do they make money? How much

"why are there small desktop linux competitors?" How are they different from the Android forks showing up around the world? How do they make money? How much would they make if Google gave away the same services for free? If milk (read: Smartphone OS) was free it's seems pretty clear that you and I would not want to enter the milk selling business. Caveat: unless we were able to deliver a superior quality milk that people would pay for and had some assurance (read: patents) that our innovation(s) would not be immediately copied and given away by the free milkers (read: Google/KIRF pirates).