[chromedev]

Because they literally have an open source operating system that is being used by a multitude of phone manufacturers, kiosks, home security systems, developers, hobbyists, security experts, Amazon Kindle, etc without any licensing fees which can be audited by anyone.

[zepto]

This is simply false.

There is not a multitude of phone manufacturers using an open source operating system.

The Android that phone manufacturers use is largely closed source, and only part of it is open source.

This has been irrefutably documented elsewhere in this thread.

This thread is about phones.

The fact that you can use the open source components of Android to build a home security system, but not a phone, just proves the point, that Android as a phone operating system, as most people consider it to be, is not open source.

[chromedev]

The operating system is open source. You are trying to say Google apps and services are part of the operating system, but they aren't. I take it you've never installed a custom Android ROM before, who frequently don't package gapps? Are you suggesting that before you have an operating system, you have to install the gapps APK?