[glymor]

I assume he means creating their own user experience. As all the examples he gives of companies creating their own OS are actually using Linux.

[tumult]

OS is more than a kernel and some drivers.

Unless you would consider Android, Palm's WebOS, Nokia's various OSs, Arch and Ubuntu to all be equivalent.

[glymor]

All the "OS"s in the article run GNU userland, X windows, webkit or gecko browsers. So yes they are the same operating system. They just have different applications in different configurations.

Android is it's own operating system. It has own user space and GUI technology. But the article didn't mention it.