Do Google plan to make Android a closed system? (via +Александар Милић)
It's totally unlikely. If you look at the price Google paid for Motorola Mobility it's pretty clear they were buying "a bunch of patents and some random other stuff", rather than "a bunch of phone technology and some random other stuff".
Google actually don't have enough people working on Android to be able to try this, and they would find it hard to hire them. Kernel developers expect their code to be contributed back to the kernel, and the main reason the Google ones have largely not managed to push their code back into the main line is simply that they're flat-out busy. The work they do does go into public repositories, just not always immediately, and not always the mainline kernel.
Android's greatest strength is the freedom that companies like Huawei have to concentrate on making the best hardware for a price point, put together a few drivers, and ship it. The higher-end suppliers like Samsung and HTC are adding a customisation layer on top, but it's really pretty thin. Mostly it's just a different way of displaying the desktop, or the lock screen, or a fancy clock app.