[jt_thurs_82]

There's a couple of big reasons, as I see it:

- licensing: some people, myself included, think a FOSS/Libre license such as LGPL/GPL3 is better for people and society. Android is mostly apache, which means it's not resistant at all to a company "stealing" it without giving back to the community.

- dependency on google: like it or not, key components of android are completely maintained by google. That means that the future of an open platform is at the whims of one organization. Sure, you could fork, but android is a massive project and a small team could hardly keep up.

- "the core of android can still be used by any phone manufacturer": android, and the related IPs, is pretty firmly in the control of the US government. A lot of funding for non-android mobile OSes comes from other governments interested in a platform and support that is unencumbered from five eyes states

My personal opinion? Having more platforms is good, as are more compatibility layers. Android is more than just an OS or a platform, it's a set of ABIs for running apps that's used by over a billion people.