The primary ways in which the Mozilla Foundation earns money is through search partnerships, donations and grants.

Yes. It’s the same thing with the Linux kernel and other large FOSS projects. There isn’t a perfect fit for Android, but it would be better than the way ASOP is run now.

As for Red Hat, this comes down to subscriptions or enterprise offerings, neither which really apply to a consumer OS unless you’re willing to pay a subscription fee out of pocket.

Consumer devices ship with proprietary software which is licensed all the time. It could be a library or an entire OS. Consumers are not the target market, like consumers aren’t the target market for RHEL.

The prime example is Windows. It’s licensed to Dell or whomever and ships with the hardware. The license is baked in.

Some people might be willing to pay if the price is reasonable enough. Android has support for major vendors, so using it as a base would be a boon to people doing things like media boxes and signage.

I doubt there will be much to be earned from offering consulting or training, either, unless they make Android exceedingly confusing to use.

It’s the opposite. Make it easy to use. Companies pay for tools which reduces developer time.

The only companies that would pay for Android are OEMs who are already making thin margins, and effectively it’d drive the price of non-iPhones up.

The smaller OEMs would pay for licenses, PS hours, and backend services. They don’t have the expertise or budget.

Samsung? They’re going to keep doing what they’re doing because they have the expertise and budget to fork from upstream. It’s possible they would rally around Android, like companies have rallied around the Linux kernel.

OEMs do this with Linux already, so it would bring Android more inline with the norms.

It could be profitable the way RHEL or the Mozilla Foundation is profitable.

Companies will pay for OS support, and companies will pay for access. Android as a foundation with a company selling OS support and services which could be rebranded would be profitable.

I’m thinking about the wider IoT space here beyond only mobile.

Yeah, MS would probably buy Android to get back into the mobile market.

I agree. Ideally, Android would be something like Debian or a mobile project of the Linux Foundation. It would really be better off if it wasn’t beholden to a company.

The mobile OS wars have already settled on Android and iOS. Closing off Android would destroy the market, and I don’t want to go back to the days when Windows Mobile was the leading mobile OS.

Odds are low of anything good happening because of this administration.

This is pretty much it.

I was coasting along, and doing pretty well for myself. Things needed to be changed politically, but nothing dire. Working on that change. Then everything went off a f&@“ng cliff into the ocean.

Life is bleak, and like any disaster, know where the exits are.