Emphasis on could. What we have now is necessary but not sufficient for that to happen.
It's going to be really interesting to see how it plays out. Even assuming it does get adoption, the most likely path is device makers and carriers taking the open source version and customizing the crap out of it and releasing their own "closed" versions of it, just like Android. And if HP does anything to prevent that then what we inevitably have is something less open than Android.
I do very much like the fact that Google now has another player that will keep them honest about how "open" they are.
A copyleft license [1] could probably eliminate most invasive proprietary "value-add". Though that might hinder adoption, being just a dump pipe or a box mover isn't very profitable. Hopefully companies are getting desperate enough to give up on Apple-like profits.
1. A license that requires derivative works to be distributed under the same terms
It's going to be really interesting to see how it plays out. Even assuming it does get adoption, the most likely path is device makers and carriers taking the open source version and customizing the crap out of it and releasing their own "closed" versions of it, just like Android. And if HP does anything to prevent that then what we inevitably have is something less open than Android.
I do very much like the fact that Google now has another player that will keep them honest about how "open" they are.