I think that if we want to be free from google and apple duopoly on mobile we need to embrace linux phones. It is the only solution. Google is trying to close the golden cage slowly and we need to escape on other operating system also on mobile. We re only delay a problem. We need phone preinstalled with linux for mass adoption. We need more apps for linux phones and more userbase.
The point is, saying “we need to embrace linux phones” is silly. Android uses the Linux kernel, therefore it is a Linux phone. I know that’s not the point of saying “Linux phone” but the line should be drawn better. Ideally, the Linux kernel should be completely discarded for a better kernel, but if the OS can still run “Linux apps” or “Linux desktops” under that new kernel, people will still probably call it a Linux phone.
Android being owned by Google doesn’t really do much. It is very unlikely Google would close source the project, because any company making an “android phone” needs to modify android for their own stuff. Many features in popular android phones don’t exist upstream, and require modifying android itself. Even if Google closed AOSP, that doesn’t stop the community from working from the last release and moving forward.
I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.
There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux!