Comment Re: The solution is obvious (Score 1) 579
You do not have to pay for android source code. It is open source. You can download and compile it right now I'd you wish. That's what Amazon did with fire os and what cyanogenmod did.
If you want to use Googles apps on a phone you sell, then yes there is an agreement to get access to googles apps on your companies phones.
Android is not open source. Android is not free.
The publicly available open source code is NOT the same as what is developed by Google (and collaboratively by OEMs) and released to market running on high end devices. This (and Google's apps) is what consumers want, and it's what they (and OEMs) pay actual money for.
The two are not comparable. AOSP is NOT Android.