The elephant in the room that nobody ever talks about is the linux kernel's lack of a stable ABI. Windows and OS X drivers don't need to be recompiled every tim

The elephant in the room that nobody ever talks about is the linux kernel's lack of a stable ABI. Windows and OS X drivers don't need to be recompiled every time the kernel is updated, whereas in linux it's nearly always required. If the same drivers would continue to work, Google could just update the software like happens regularly on Windows and OS X. Oh, and to head it off: Yes, it would be magical if all the device drivers were open source and contributed back to the kernel proper. But that's not happening now, and likely never will. Linux is under no obligation to provide a stable ABI, but Google's choice to use it now has consequences.