Regardless of whether most users know what to do with the source code, are they free to ask or hire a developer of their choice to study and modify it on their behalf? drdaeman's point, which seems inarguable to me, is that with most Android devices, the answer is no, because Sony/Samsung/Motorola are free to use AOSP code under the Apache license, but they don't pass that freedom on to the user.
I believe that's called "moving the goalposts". Android is free. that's what the original discussion was. No, most of the time products based on android as delivered to customers are not free software. But that doesn't mean android isn't free.
Relevant to this discussion is that Google's nefarious plans (more people using the internet) would have been met even with a fully free software stack. They had to expend more effort building an Apache codebase to appease their partners, who wanted to have their own (minor) proprietary forks.
This actually makes Android more attractive to Microsoft and generally increases the chance of a divergent, proprietary fork, which I believe Kindle already is.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-import...
Regardless of whether most users know what to do with the source code, are they free to ask or hire a developer of their choice to study and modify it on their behalf? drdaeman's point, which seems inarguable to me, is that with most Android devices, the answer is no, because Sony/Samsung/Motorola are free to use AOSP code under the Apache license, but they don't pass that freedom on to the user.