At no point is anybody going to "win" this particular contest. Numbers go up and down and back and forth, but this isn't a horse race. If any company were to wi

At no point is anybody going to "win" this particular contest. Numbers go up and down and back and forth, but this isn't a horse race. If any company were to win here (even, or possibly especially, Google) it would be a huge loss for everyone. The fact that you're even using that word is very telling. Monopolies are bad news for everyone regardless of who possesses them. You seem to be rooting for some sort of open source monopoly rather than a Google monopoly, but I think even that would be a bad thing. I'd much rather see a world where different business models and different development methodologies (open source vs. proprietary vs. hybrid, walled gardens vs. Wild West vs. everything in between, etc.) are all doing what they do best and competing with each other and learning from each other. It's absolutely true that Android as you know it now simply would not exist if it didn't originally have the iPhone to draw inspiration from; this is pretty incontrovertible. I'm not saying that to denigrate Android in any way, but rather to point out that different approaches to product development have different pros and cons, and having all of those approaches coexisting and competing and evolving is a much better situation for everyone than having only one major player or one development methodology industry-wide. This is includes the seemingly-positive-but-not-really outcome where some form of "freedom" or "openness" becomes the monopoly.