[swiley]

A large portion of the components needed to boot (not to mention use) android have always been closed. This is absolutely not the case for Linux. You can boot a totally free kernel on most PCs and don't really even need much userspace (busybox and whatever app you want to run (provided it doesn't need X11) is usually enough)

Furthermore, android really wasn't built to be easy for individuals to work on. Compare compiling and modifying Linux to compiling and modifying android. I've done the first but I don't think I've ever even finished downloading the source (tens to hundreds of gigabytes) to even start with the second.

[_bxg1]

Those components are presumably hardware drivers, right? In which case they're kept closed-source by the OEMs, and in which case you'd face the same problem whether you're putting Android on top of them or not. The solution in either case is to develop open source drivers. This is true regardless of whether you start with Android or go back to the Linux kernel and start over.

[swiley]

On modern Linux the drivers are part of the kernel which puts them under the GPL, legally obligating the release of their source code. On android the graphics drivers are part of userspace which lets the authors get around this.

[_bxg1]

Okay, but all that means is there aren't currently open source drivers for Android because we haven't needed them. Presumably the Linux kernel doesn't already have drivers for Android hardware (and if it did, presumably they could be ported to Android proper), so they'd have to be written either way. The point is moot.

[swiley]

> there aren't currently open source drivers for Android because we haven't needed them.

People don’t need anything, most of them just suck it up and deal with it. On Android this means throwing out phones and getting new ones every few years.