It seems they're making the vendors push their kernel patches into AOSP.
From TFA:
" In addition to the architectural changes, we're working with our silicon and device partners to take their code changes, such as features for a carrier network in a specific country, and move them into the common Android Open Source Project (AOSP) codebase. For example, Sony and Qualcomm contributed dozens of features and hundreds of bugfixes to Android O so they no longer need to rework these patches with each new release of Android. "
So is this a way around mainlining all of the silicon vendor's various kernels? I have heard that each vendor just hacks their hardware into the 3.10.X and then just keeps a repo of it to meet open source requirements. Because they are unable to make the quality requirements to get their code upstream.
Perhaps it's time for a Halium/libhybris approach.
If I understand correctly, Ubuntu Touch and other GNU/Linux platforms would use an upstream kernel (4.x) to boot a device and delegate to an lxc container to pull in only whatever binary-blob hardware support from a 3.10 Android kernel was necessary.
From TFA:
" In addition to the architectural changes, we're working with our silicon and device partners to take their code changes, such as features for a carrier network in a specific country, and move them into the common Android Open Source Project (AOSP) codebase. For example, Sony and Qualcomm contributed dozens of features and hundreds of bugfixes to Android O so they no longer need to rework these patches with each new release of Android. "