[squarefoot]

They never did. Releasing the source contributed creating the developers ecosystem we have today. What Google fears more than the Armageddon would be someone making a truly FOSS operating system capable of running on Android devices, and they prevent that by keeping device drivers and firmware tightly locked.

[extropy]

IMO Android is working towards having a compatibility layer so that drivers can be freely shared across distros.

Look up Project Treble.

[imtringued]

That still requires cooperation from the SoC vendors. If they aren't interested then Treble will go nowhere.

[lern_too_spel]

Treble is required by the Vendor Test Suite for Android 8 and higher. https://source.android.com/devices/architecture

[anchpop]

This is probably still in Google's best interest, since it greatly reduces the cost for OEMs to distribute updates (and updates are one area where Android severely lags behind iOS)