Android 11 released

https://www.codeaurora.org/about tells me it's a Linux Foundation project serving the "open source projects serving the mobile wireless ecosystem". It looks to be home to some 7,000 git repositories, which at first glance means it fits my definitions of "substantial" and "significant". From https://www.xda-developers.com/qualcomm-snapdragon-845-so..., it appears to be where Qualcomm does code drops for it's chipsets. It smells like a collection of vendors selling Android/Linux or perhaps ARM/Linux pooling their resources.

As for AOSP being slow: I've used Huawei, Samsung, Pixels and Nokia, and I can't say I've noticed a huge difference. The Pixel's camera software Google is/was keeping to themselves did make a noticeable difference in low light, but I don't use the conditions camera in very poor conditions a lot and I suspect most people don't. Given that, the difference in sales between the Samsung A51 and Nokia 7.2 was hard to explain here in Australia as the prices are about the same and the hardware performance is near identical. If I take what you say about speed at face value, that means software wise it's a choice between faster vs working reliably. Then I happened across the price in the USA. The A51 is 25% cheaper than the 7.2 there, or putting it another way the 7.2 was the same price in USD$ as it is in AUD$. _That_ would explain it. Nokia has screwed up their distribution chain somehow.