The situation is somewhat similar to what was happening on desktop Linux some years ago. On the desktop, the kernel _and_ most of the core userland is GPL (most

The situation is somewhat similar to what was happening on desktop Linux some years ago. On the desktop, the kernel _and_ most of the core userland is GPL (mostly v2), an extremely powerful license. nVidia got away with being able to distribute proprietary GPU kernel modules for some time, because distributions weren't moving fast enough. Why did they do it? Some vague illusion of their "Intellectual Property" being stolen, and competitors destroying them. All in all, they suffered (because they had to keep up with a fast-moving linux.git), and users suffered (because they had to get the precise version for their kernel). After many years of work, the cards were eventually reverse-engineered, and the noveau drivers are technically superior today. All in all, nVidia gained nothing and lost a huge amount of trust: if they'd upstreamed their driver, it would have been maintained for free (and improved upon); they could have concentrated on their core competency: making chips. Today, AOSP (contrary to what its name suggests) is mostly just a code-dump project. They've forked Linux and have stripped out the GNU (GPL) userland. Broadly speaking, there are two ways to stay in power. 1. release minimal source code, and don't let other parties get in (aka. the Apple/Microsoft strategy). 2. simply assign all copyright to a neckbeard foundation with no money and nothing to lose (aka. FSF/GNU). Provided there's a big enough market (unlike nVidia being virtually the only manufacturer of decent GPUs back in the day), people will simply stop buying your hardware because their software doesn't run on it. Google is pretty much on its own here, because there is no "open source project": various vendors fork the code and make their own modifications on top and distribute it happily. I run a CM nightly myself, because I get updates in the form of commit SHA-1s every night: _that_ is how you involve users and build a community. Can anyone threaten CM? Now, Qualcomm is attacking Google: Google can't give them the finger because they're powerless. Fragmentation (aka. forks) are part and parcel of any uncontrolled development. GNOME is one very famous example: not everyone is happy with the same thing (GNOME Shell, Cinnamon, Unity etc.). For another example, look at mplayer: mplayer, mplayer2, and (now) mpv. The forks compete against each other, and the competent communities eventually achieve dominance. Contrast that with how many times Torvalds' tree has been forked: the forks don't survive because the community and leadership is strong and won't bend to anyone's demands (you're probably seen the media reporting how Linus gives nVidia the finger, or bashes patches that further Microsoft's UEFI agenda). Emacs has also had various forks in the past (remember XEmacs?), but all of them died off because of weak leadership. AOSP should think about these issues seriously, and figure out how to keep the project running. I don't know what they should specifically change, because nobody has any idea about what problems they are facing.