Well in one regard they already did a variation, when the original G1 was being designed it was a deal breaker if the blobs for the radio couldn't be distributed.
That said, one of the interesting "advantages" that Samsung and Apple get here is that they are their own SoC vendors. Google will have to get into this game eventually.
>That said, one of the interesting "advantages" that Samsung and Apple get here is that they are their own SoC vendors.
Both Apple and Samsung heavily use Qualcomm products. The Samsung S4 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600. It should say something when Samsung isn't using it's own Exynos for it's premiere flagship device. The S4 also features a Qualcomm 4G LTE modem. And a Qualcomm power management chip. And audio codec.
The iPhone5 is almost as Qualcomm heavy itself, too.
I think Samsung and Apple would have equally as difficult of a time trying to release binaries (or source) as well, regardless of who is designing or assembling the SoC!
I don't disagree with your last point per se, but it seems weird that it would be necessary. For very tightly integrated things, I can believe that vertical integration is the optimal solution. But having to vertically integrate just because doing it any other way requires dealing with shit vendors seems to suggest a rather poorly functioning marketplace. If all Google wants is an off-the-shelf product with non-onerous licensing, but the only way to get that is to actually acquire a vendor because nobody will sell otherwise, that comes across as at least somewhat troubling.
It's not that weird if you're the SOC vendor. After all, if you withhold the blobs, then whenever people want a newer operating system, they have to buy a new device. The last thing someone like Qualcomm want is for you to be able to run Android 5 on your 2 year old device. They like the current throwaway model just fine, thanks.
To tell whether or not it's a poorly functioning marketplace we'd have to know how much more Google was willing to pay for more generous licensing terms. My guess is $0, because the benefit for Google is questionable.
This is a very good point. When Android was first released, it was a unique opportunity to study the relationship between an open source RIL layer and the underlying RIL library, in part because you could build and run Android with the RIL library. There are tons of claims of secret sauce in RIL implementations, no less than there are for GPU drivers.
That said, one of the interesting "advantages" that Samsung and Apple get here is that they are their own SoC vendors. Google will have to get into this game eventually.