>While Android is open, it's more of a "look but don't touch" kind of open. You're allowed to contribute to Android and allowed to use it for little hobbies, but in nearly every area, the deck is stacked against anyone trying to use Android without Google's blessing. The second you try to take Android and do something that Google doesn't approve of, it will bring the world crashing down upon you.
Sure, the license is open, and Chromium is therefore technically open. But it's dangerously close to not being usable in any real practical meaning of "open source".
The way things are, we do indeed stand on the precipice of a Chromium-only web with—for all practical intents and purpose—no open browser. Firefox is the last thing that stands between us and that reality. It's just a shame that they seem to be wasting hundreds of millions on admin and management instead of just throwing it all at their developers.
I can't see anything about this anywhere giving any reasons; is it simply that they're released frequently and there aren't really any long-lived branches?
This isn't sustainable open source development in any practical sense. Sure, it's technically open source, but nearly useless for anything but consumption straight from Google. I'd say that that makes it practically not open source.
Debian has a release model for a reason and it's their raison d'etre. Of course they don't want to compromise that.
Considering the amount of other distros that use them as a base they're providing something that people want.