> Most if not all large, successful open source projects are funded by commercial interests, not just consumers.

Right, the key point here is most of the fundamental projects were never commercial in origin and had grassroots community or academic roots. Android is built on top of a student's hobby Unix clone.

> The resources it takes to maintain something like Android far exceeds what can be funded solely by donations and volunteers.

Um, no duh a corporate project requires corporate funding. Android was never a grass roots community effort.