But is it reasonable to say that Google has "sacrificed any idea of openness" by delaying the release of source code for one iteration of its platform?
Yes. Eventually is not now. Right now, Honeycomb is a closed source OS. Allowing politicians to live in the eventually (so they can keep their pet issue alive to get re-elected and not solved) has done us no good. Allowing companies to pull the same trick is not acceptable either. Open should not be a marketing term.
Well, I'd say it was reasonable to say Google sacrificed openness when
* They made sure that many of the most compelling -- to end users -- built-in bits were proprietary (i.e., those sweet Google-branded apps that you can get C&D'd for distributing)
* They began imposing requirements above and beyond software license compliance if you wanted full access
* They made sure their default (and thus, to most users, only) marketplace had the same sort of remote kill switch people complained about in Apple's ecosystem
* etc., etc.
Android is a mobile platform that you can sometimes get source for, sometimes hack on, and sometimes do what you like with. Which, um, isn't any idea of "openness" I'm familiar with.
Yes, because Google's privileged partners like Motorola get to access the source before its official release in order to have it ready on their products immediately, while everyone else has to wait.
As mellis said http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2369108 they shipped product so the source should be good enough to ship also.