I'm honestly surprised at the intensity with which people are going to bat for this (context: used to work on Android and generally have a dim view of the open source-ness https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38725926)
If I'm understanding you both right, I'd say their point is:
- it's not very open source if the only thing you can rely on is "API shim on top of Linux kernel", there's to some approximation no phone app, no launcher, no Settings, no browser. Those are hard!
- It's doubly so if _the apps for this open source OS regularly rely on GMS APIs_, which require a commercial relationship with Google.
and your point is:
- There _is_ a phone app, launcher, Settings, and browser. No one said the OS and a _full modern mobile application suite_ are open source.
- It is very good that the OS is open source and that shouldn't be discounted just because its non-trivial to get your own distro up and running.
- completely putting words in your mouth now :) - the GMS APIs are things that _should_ be vendored, it'd be worse if Google's location tracking was baked into the OS. Also, vendors can provide shims that allow apps to call GMS APIs "headers" even if the impementer isn't GMS
