[surajrmal]

If you look at who contributes 99+% of aosp patches, nothing has actually changed. The same group of companies are still working on it. There is just less public openness about the process as it happens (eg open source code reviews). A lot of this was already happening but there was a strange duplication of process causing workflow problems depending on which way you were developing. They simplified it to a single process.

[xethos]

I'm not sure I consider this view to be looking back far enough. Android as an OS that people use has been slowly growing more closed and controlled for... well, almost since its inception.

Google has kept an infamously tight leash that OEMs must not stray too far from; the Open Handset Alliance ensures certain Google apps come pre-installed, down to homescreen placement. The OHA mandates OEMs not release "incompatible" versions of Android, or other mobile OS', as well. Should an OEM want to sell Windows Mobile, Amazons FireOS, or Firefox's mobile OS, they will likely lose their license to sell anything with the brand name Android.

Google has also been moving away from the 'O' in AOSP for some time as well. Running many AOSP apps means dealing with what Google treats as abandonware, such as the eMail app, Contacts, and the open launcher (replaced with Google's proprietary launcher).

I'm certain I don't have to tell this crowd about the death of bootloader unlocking and the ROM scene. Telling me this isn't pushed by Google (which I agree with), and following up with "And Google has no way to prevent this" isn't something I see as believable. Google mandates where the YouTube and Chrome apps get placed on the homescreen; you're telling me that, in order to be licensed as Android, Google can't similarly mandate bootloader unlocking?

Nothing changed last week, or even the week before, but the direction isn't terribly difficult to see, IMO.