Do you see Canonical or Microsoft producing hardware (successfully)? I don't. They produce software for OEMs to install. Jolla is seemingly intending on being both a software company and an OEM. And that's why OEMs don't need to differentiate on "task switchers" - they don't work on them at all, for the most part. They take software that someone else has written, put it on their own hardware, optionally with some of what they consider "value added extras" (mostly crapware), and sell it off.

But you're quite correct that it would be great to have a collaborative environment where everyone is working on the same great stuff, but reality says that probably won't happen. Why should another OEM pay for software people, when they can take what (say) Jolla produce, slap it on the same hardware, and sell it cheaper - or offer other services, better support/warranty conditions etc - due to a lower cost as a result of not having to pay those software people?

Having licence (or branding) conditions that *force* that collaboration is more or less precisely what I'm talking about: offer it CC-BY-NC for everyone in the hobbyist market to do what they like with, throw it on random pieces of hardware, do cool stuff. Let companies talk together, make a licensing deal that says they either pay for the right to use it, or contribute efforts.

From the limited information I know about the situation in Android-land, this isn't entirely different from having to get certified, and not being able to use the market/other Google apps if you don't.