That said, didn't hird basically die because Linux gained critical mass faster and peeled off the core developers? It would be nice to imagine another bottom-up mobile OS emerging and stealing the thunder of this one, but it seems like the hope here is that Libre Phone will gravitate in some of the devs from the existing top-down open phone projects. Who knows if that will work.

One thing I wouldn't count out right now though: China is very much in favor of getting software and hardware monopolies out from the control of US companies. Free/open(ish) LLMs are the big example, maybe they will jump on this to try and break Google's stranglehold on the mobile market.