> Google pulls the plug ? cool, you're stuck on Android 17
And you're stuck on the current hardware generation. Pretty much the only reason why Android sucks less than other mobile OSes is that hardware vendors have a pressing reason to make it work. The further the Google Android kernel diverges from its last-open version, the harder it will become to backport drivers -- and that's assuming that hardware vendors even bother to comply with the GPL when Google decides not to.
It can, and has in the past, diverged from the baseline Linux kernel, but not from “the last open Android kernel” as it must remain open source per GPL.
And you're stuck on the current hardware generation. Pretty much the only reason why Android sucks less than other mobile OSes is that hardware vendors have a pressing reason to make it work. The further the Google Android kernel diverges from its last-open version, the harder it will become to backport drivers -- and that's assuming that hardware vendors even bother to comply with the GPL when Google decides not to.