[fwip]

Lots of possibilities. One is that Android charges a per-device* fee to the phone manufacturers to license the OS, similar to Windows.

*with the usual hijinks where a high-end device requires a bigger license fee than a budget phone.

[freedomben]

Wouldn't that essentially mandate the discontinuation of AOSP? That seems like a massive loss to humanity, and certainly to the open source world.

I suppose it's possible that GAPPS would become licensed but the OS for free, though I could see the bean counters having a big problem with that.