When the open source advocates didn’t like what the closed source companies did, they created open source alternatives. In the case of Linux, those alternatives were so good, that even Azure runs twice as many Linux instances as Windows instances. They won by creating something better.

Android compatible hardware is such a commodity, it’s not that difficult for a company to buy in bulk from an ODM, and put a custom build of AOSP on it. The market just really doesn’t care enough outside of China.